What is multi-cloud infrastructure and the advantages it has to offer?
A multi-cloud infrastructure is increasingly becoming the first-choice for organisations keen to take advantage of everything that a cloud environment has to offer. Multi-cloud architecture provides the opportunity for a business to get the best value for money when it comes to distributing workloads across multiple environments and to better mitigate risks. With this in mind, we’ve put together a list of some of the key ways in which multi-cloud infrastructure is able to offer such a range of benefits for enterprises, and why it is the future of IT within business.
- Defining the right fit for your organisation – Optimising ROI from cloud investment for your organisation is simple if you’re using a multi-cloud infrastructure. Instead of a lack of transparency over functionality, pricing models and conflict between different cloud options, you can take a much more flexible approach. A multi-cloud infrastructure means you’ll be able to pick from a diverse set of cloud service providers and options to solve needs across the business without compromising on choices. The end result is an optimised investment, as well as better performance.
- Balancing cost efficiency and security – It’s widely accepted that the private cloud is the most secure – but this can come with a huge price tag, especially once you go beyond a certain scale. In a multi-cloud environment, there is the opportunity to create a hybrid approach where the private cloud is applied in situations where the highest security is necessary but not across the board. As a result, security is targeted and costs stay low.
- Minimising delays (latency) – Latency is to be expected where services are being delivered by cloud service providers at a distance. With multi-cloud infrastructure, the data centre that is closest to an end-user can be used to service the need to help minimise latency. This is something that is especially useful where corporate data needs are spread across many different geographic locations.
- Mix and match platforms and cloud service providers – Being locked in to individual cloud service providers can be limiting and, often, expensive. It also considerably reduces the autonomy that a business has to solve issues as they arise, using the best possible resources available. This isn’t the case with a multi-cloud infrastructure, which enables platforms and vendors to be mixed and matched, with ease of change inbuilt for the future. It also means that an organisation can choose from any available options for problem-solving, rather than just those that are part of a locked-in deal.
- Don’t put your eggs in one basket – If your workload is distributed across multiple cloud networks then the potential for disaster to strike is limited. Concurrent and simultaneous downtime across every single vendor and platform is unlikely and so your workloads are more protected than if they were with a single provider that suffered a hit.
Multi-cloud infrastructure has already been integrated into many modern organisations. At S.A.D.S IT, we have extensive experience providing these services for businesses looking to upgrade, or integrate, current cloud provision. To find out more about the services we offer, please visit our ‘Cloud Services’ page on our website.
