Getting Started with Multi-Cloud Architecture

Multi-Cloud means an organization is using multiple different services from different cloud providers to fulfill their needs. These services include SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, and cloud providers, such as Amazon web services, Google Cloud Platform, and IBM Cloud.

How to set up Multi-Cloud Architecture/Strategy

As many companies are moving towards multi-cloud. Your organization can develop an intentional and purposeful multi-cloud environment by taking a step back and carefully developing a multi-cloud strategy. Here are some points to keep in mind while developing a multi-cloud strategy.

Determine your goals

First, discuss with all the stakeholders the requirements for a service or application and why you need a multi-cloud strategy once you have decided to implement multi-cloud in your organization.

So, now you already have a plan of what you need so you can list down all the services required for your organization and also define how much workload would be there on each service so you can manage workload efficiently and distribute it with different cloud providers. Also, define whether a particular service will run continuously or during specific times.

Explore different cloud providers

So now you have a list of all the services you want to use; according to that list, search for a cloud provider with keeping cost, security, and data storage in mind. Cloud providers offer the same services, so look closely at which can handle your workload most efficiently.

At the time of choosing, the cloud provider also keeps in mind the cost of that service, as every organization wants to bring down its cost. Look at how to calculate charges and how they will be applied to you. Also, involve your team who will be working on this cloud service, such as your development and maintenance team. They may have some better ideas for choosing different cloud vendors.

Plan for Resilience

Once you have decided on different cloud providers for different services, look at your system's flexibility in case of failure. Remember that public cloud providers can occasionally find themselves limited by their difficulties. The availability of numerous cloud resources is one of the benefits of multi-cloud.

Prepare your alternative in advance. How will you manage your services to ensure consistent delivery to your clients in the event of a failure? So prepare alternatives in advance to be on the safe side, although chances of failure are very less as cloud providers are highly reliable nowadays. Your cloud architects can prepare for numerous contingencies if they know how your cloud will fail during a disruption.

Consider Distributed Cloud

Distributed cloud strategy allows you to provide different services through data centers available at different geographical locations. So chances of failure also decrease for all data centers. If your services may need a particular data center for a service, you can contact cloud providers regarding that.

You should set up a cloud in the positions where usage is very high for performance optimization. Generally, organizations working on IoT or data-heavy workloads are using this technique. Concentrating on cloud distribution might not be as crucial for lighter workloads. Although it may seem apparent, when developing a dispersed multi-cloud strategy, keep in mind where you observe current users and projected growth.

Improve visibility

Once you have started services on the cloud, you will have different states regarding where usage is high/low and how you can manage different resources to serve your clients more effectively. Most cloud providers provide different visualization/charts for analyzing cloud usage. Now you have real-time data so you can make decisions quickly and more accurately.

Cloud providers also keep different failures of services. So you can deeply look at what has failed, why it failed, and how we can resolve it. Think about how a single platform that enables you to display real-time cloud data might help you monitor your cloud architecture instead of attempting to monitor a wide variety of various cloud providers separately.

Redefine your strategy

You should examine your multi-cloud strategy after implementation to ensure you're on the right path. Additionally, you can access cloud data and make plans depending on your present or expected future status; this is beneficial for honing your strategy. Utilize your new knowledge about your cloud usage to check that your plan is still appropriate.

Adapting to usage changes is possible with your multi-cloud strategy, new features or functionality, more applications, or other stack changes by keeping your goals and progress in mind.

Benefits of adopting a multi-cloud strategy

Low Risk

A multi-cloud infrastructure prevents your business from depending entirely on one provider of cloud services. Only the services provided by that vendor are affected if one of your providers experiences downtime. It's improbable that all the providers will go offline at once. A multi-cloud strategy reduces the danger of a single failure point by adding redundancies, which stabilize your infrastructure.

Advanced Security

The risk of cyberattacks like a Dos/ DDoS attack is reduced when cloud services are spread over several providers, and it keeps the network optimized so your customers can get what they require.

Customization

With a multi-cloud strategy, you can customize your offers and blend the finest services from each cloud to better meet your business objectives. In the end, this translates into increased ROI as you respond to critical business demands.

Avoid vendor lock-in

It can be challenging, expensive, and time-consuming to switch to a different cloud vendor when your applications are largely dependent on a particular vendor. A flexible multi-cloud strategy enables you to design for portability between several cloud vendors.

Scalability

Distribute resources across several clouds to make it simpler to scale up or down your services in response to demand.