Multi-cloud management: What are the top five trends?
Author : Jerome Dilouya, CEO of InterCloud
01 March 2023
An effective multi-cloud strategy can improve the quality of service, while enhancing security and strengthening partner connections – the key to value lies in how organisations manage their multi-cloud infrastructure.
As businesses negotiate a period of economic uncertainty, changing working habits and heightened cyber threats, adopting and refining multi-cloud capabilities will support efforts to scale sustainably and meet strategic objectives. This is according to Jerome Dilouya, CEO of InterCloud.
However, for businesses fully to unlock the potential of a multi-cloud strategy, they need to address five key trends impacting the market today.
Bolstering cyber security is a business imperative
One of the key trends identified by InterCloud is the need to enhance cyber security. This is driven by rapid increases in attacks such as ransomware, with Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2022 recording a 40 percent year-on-year growth in attacks between June 2021 and July 2022.
Global spending on security and risk management is already rising dramatically, forecast to increase by 11.3 percent in 2023, with cloud security expected to have the strongest growth.
Dilouya commented: “Hybrid cloud deployments experience security breaches because there are too many moving parts and variations in security configurations, challenging organisations’ ability to implement consistent security across hybrid environments.
“Securing your network with an agnostic multi-cloud platform is an effective filter against harmful traffic, while application programmable interfaces (API) and telemetry reduce risk through real-time monitoring, event correlation, and automation.”
Economic uncertainty requires better cost management
60 percent of infrastructure and operations leaders report significant public cloud cost overruns that negatively impact their budgets, outlining the importance of choosing a service that aligns with business needs.
“The attractive economics of cloud is sometimes diluted by the cost of migration, modernisation, and platform construction, with the cloud’s hidden costs capable of throwing IT budgets into disarray. Cloud service providers (CSPs) also have different pricing structures, which is why multi-cloud must be supported with visibility and observability to unlock its true value,” continued Dilouya.
“With a global reach from a single multi-cloud connectivity platform, enterprises can lower costs by increasing efficiencies and removing the need to manage connectivity to multiple CSPs at the same time.
“Businesses should also look for a multi-cloud connectivity platform with in-built SLAs that integrate into all clouds, eliminating the costly need to maintain multiple cloud network agreements.”
Scale at speed with digitisation
Digitisation has torn up and pieced back together the corporate rule book, with disruptive business models forcing traditional organisations to embrace digital to remain competitive.
“Digitally enabled businesses are equipped to scale quickly, with services that can be consumed by customers anywhere in the world. Providing exceptional customer service is crucial to global enterprises and if managed correctly using the right platform, a multi-cloud strategy helps to deliver transformational experiences, ensuring a consistent level of service no matter where customers are located or how they move around,” added Dilouya.
Analytics at edge driving need for distributed data management
Recent estimates showed that the world could generate more data in the next three years than over the past 30, and businesses must be equipped to handle this torrent of information.
Dilouya continued: “The demand for local data analysis and data exchange to support digital workflows is outpacing organisations’ ability to classify, secure, transport and process data across regions.
“Multicloud connectivity platforms enable businesses to implement a data architecture that captures data at the edge and transports it securely to nearest locations for processing to deliver real-time insights.”
Expansion of the value chain creates disruptive digital ecosystems
Digital business ecosystems thrive in shared platforms as the curated environments allow companies to join forces, cocreate, and innovate with partners.
Dilouya concluded: “Digital business ecosystems encompass a network of partners, developers, and customers, and the cloud is increasing interconnectivity across these different stakeholders.
“Enterprises seeking to harness the benefits must implement a cloud network infrastructure that supports a globally distributed network, facilitating partnerships with smart interconnection within a secure environment.”