By: Dave Russell, Vice President, Enterprise Strategy at Veeam Software
Gartner estimates that by 2022, 75% of enterprise customers using cloud infrastructure as a service will adopt a deliberate multi-cloud strategy. Up from 49% in 2017, this is a fast-growing trend, which shows little sign of abating as businesses continue to ‘mix and match’ the services provided by the big four hyperscalers – AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Alibaba. With that said, Gartner’s used of the term ‘deliberate’ multi-cloud strategy is a telling one, as it implies that there is such a thing as an accidental or even haphazard counterpart.
The truth is that there is, and in the IT world this is a tale as old as time. Infrastructure evolves and expands organically, based on the need for short term fixes and challenges posed by managing increasing data volumes. The pandemic underlined this fact in a big way. According to Veeam’s Data Protection Report 2021, 50% of CXOs in Saudi and 52% in UAE said that the need to maintain operations during the pandemic had held back their strategic digital transformation initiatives. It is only now that we will see a shift as businesses move beyond the crisis stage of their Covid-19 response and start to look at how the digital infrastructure and skills they acquired through short-term necessity can be evolved into a coherent, longer-term vision.
There is no reason why the same is not true when it comes to multi-cloud.
Flexera’s 2021
State of the Cloud report found that 92% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy.
The question I would post, is how many have a deliberate multi-cloud strategy?
Yes, many enterprises will have weighed up the pros and cons of working with
each cloud provider and implemented a Cloud Data Management strategy to ensure
they can manage and protect data across multiple public cloud platforms. But we
must not pretend that a significant number are likely to have found themselves
working with multiple cloud provides, based on factors such as what platforms
their partners use, through mergers and acquisitions, or in an attempt to
contain spiralling costs. This is where the risk of multi-cloud can begin to
offset the benefits.
Send in the digital health inspectors
Multi-cloud brings a number of challenges in terms of cloud
security, skills, and cost optimization which businesses must be aware of
before investing heavily in this as a strategy. Focusing on security first, so
often cybersecurity vulnerabilities can be traced back to low levels of digital
hygiene – a problem that is exasperated by using multiple cloud providers. In
an ideal world, businesses would all have the required digital hygiene to
successfully manage a multi-cloud environment, reaping the benefits of
scalability and diverse capabilities this can brings. But in the real world
rather than the ideal world, many businesses are still challenged by shadow IT
and employees who require more extensive training when it comes to handling
data compliantly, being more savvy when it comes to spotting phishing links,
and using strong, varied passwords that they change regularly.
This takes us onto skills because as well as employees requiring
training to improve their digital hygiene and savviness, multi-cloud also
creates a skills void at a more technical level – within the IT team itself. Finding
talented and experience system administrators and IT personnel is challenging
enough as it is. Now you have to find ones who are well versed in not one, but
two or three different cloud platforms. Compatibility and interoperability
between these platforms are almost non-existent. They are written using
different code, programming language and standards. Simply put, they’re made
using different bricks. So, it is important that organizations looking to
leverage a multi-cloud strategy are furnished with technical skills in all of
the platforms they plan to use. This is essential for not only managing and
protecting data across multiple public clouds, but also optimizing the costs of
this strategy.
The public cloud opens up an array of exciting opportunities for
organizations looking to consume Software as a Service (SaaS) and manage the
exploding data volumes which have challenged IT departments globally. However,
there is a feeling among IT teams that the public cloud has not completely
fulfilled the promise of being cost-effective. In fact, for many cloud costs
are spiralling out of control. So, it stands to reason, that if it’s difficult
to contain the costs of using one public cloud, it certainly isn’t any easier
to contain the costs of using multiple clouds. This is where having a cohesive
Cloud Data Management strategy comes into play. Businesses need to be honest
with themselves and ask whether they have adopted an intentional multi-cloud
strategy, or did it just happen? If it’s the latter, that is fine, but it’s
time to conduct a full review of your cloud provision, and ensure you have the
required skills on board to maximise your use of each cloud, contain your
storage costs, and to ensure data is fully protected across all infrastructure.
Businesses looking to deliberately form a multi-cloud strategy must
first ensure that their standards of digital hygiene – including cybersecurity
protocols, tracking, clear roles and responsibilities – are fit for purpose.
This is fundamental to the success of reaping the very real benefits of, while
managing the potential risks in terms of cloud security and cost containment.
Comments
Post a Comment