Adopting a multi-cloud strategy? 5 reasons why your enterprise should

Once a company decides to embrace Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service, they then face the challenge of deciding on a Cloud Service Provider (CSP), typically AWS, Azure, or GCP. Traditionally, companies would select only one public cloud vendor. However, over the last couple of years, companies have rapidly moved to adopting multi-cloud strategies, choosing to work with more than one public CSP. The motivation for why companies might consider multi-cloud approaches and architectures is where things get interesting.

Here are five drivers that lead enterprises to adopt multi-cloud strategies:

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Mergers & Acquisitions

Increased M&A means that companies are more likely to acquire a new cloud. Leading IT organizations are being proactive to put in place the people, processes, and tools that will allow them to support all major CSPsso they aren’t caught flat-footed when a merger or acquisition is announced and they are expected to integrate and operate a new cloud tech stack.

Best of Class

Developers want to build great products, and to do so they want access to the latest, best-of-class cloud technologies and services available from every and any cloud technology provider. Access to multi-cloud services creates an opportunity to innovate in ways and with speeds that would have previously been impossible, and this is vitally important to company success.

According to IDC, by 2021, at least 50 percent of global GDP will be digitized, with growth driven by digitally-enhanced offerings, operations, and relationships. IT leadership at innovative companies are embracing multi-cloud proactively to deliver on the promise of self-service, dynamic, and software-defined infrastructure for developers while upholding the IT organization’s mandate for security and compliance.

High Availability/Redundancy

IT leaders recognize that even hyper-scale CSPs like AWS, Azure, and GCP will not be free of service disruptions. They are building multi-cloud strategies to ensure their business-critical applications and systems are not reliant on a single cloud.

Vendor Lock-in

Companies are increasingly concerned about vendor lock-in and are proactively implementing multi-cloud strategies. This allows them maximum flexibility when negotiating pricing and terms.

A multi-cloud strategy also provides a modicum of protection against companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, who are increasingly entering new markets, competing against them. Companies don’t want to be reliant on a single CSP and be put in the position of delivering financial support to a vendor that is now taking business from them.

Containers (and really Kubernetes)

Developers love containers, and DevOps love Kubernetes. Kubernetes is cloud-agnostic, and you can run your cluster on AWS, GCP, Azure, or any other cloud. The rise of containers, and especially the popularity and accessibility of Kubernetes, creates a new opportunity for companies to be cloud-agnostic, and frankly, makes it much easier to be multi-cloud and provides an easier hedge against vendor lock-in.

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Most enterprise organizations are currently navigating their way through cloud-based technologies and modernizing their IT infrastructures to a multi-cloud strategy. A few are even reaping the full benefits of being able to innovate rapidly. The bigger the organization, the more likely their assets are spread across public and private clouds and a variety of CSPs, including AWS, GCP, and Azure. It’s easy to understand why: the cloud has enabled greater flexibility, accessibility, and resilience for IT professionals and business units alike. However, the convenience of the cloud, especially multi-cloud, has also created new headaches, namely, cloud security.

Organizations moving to or already operating in a multi-cloud environment need to learn about security best practices. Bringing on a Cloud Security Posture Management tool will help manage these diverse security concerns. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before an unintended change adds you to the ranks of the growing list of organizations who have to explain to their customers (and often regulators) that their information has been compromised. So if your organization is adopting a multi-cloud strategy, and it should per the reasons above, then it behooves you to implement a comprehensive strategy for continuous security and compliance.

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