You want to expand your cloud infrastructure. After doing some research, you find a public cloud provider that offers all the features and functionality you need to host your custom application. Over time, customers start asking for alternatives that are only available via a proprietary public cloud from a different vendor.

Now you have a multi-cloud.

Multi-cloud strategies have become increasingly popular in recent years, offering greater flexibility but this approach also ups complexity. With this in mind, it’s important for business leaders to educate themselves about the advantages and disadvantages of a multi-cloud approach.

Multi-cloud opportunities

• Improve innovation: A multi-cloud strategy boosts innovation by making it possible for businesses to take advantage of the best features and services offered by different cloud providers.
• Reduce risks: Different cloud vendors have data centres across multiple geographic regions. With a multi-cloud approach you can mitigate major IT disasters by not putting all of your eggs into one basket.
• Mitigate vendor lock-in: Vendor lock-in occurs when a business is forced to continue using a particular product or service because switching to an alternative is not practical. A multi-cloud strategy minimises your dependency on a single provider.
• Lower latency: Select cloud regions and zones that are as close to your customers as possible to minimise latency and improve user experience.

Multi-cloud challenges

• Manage talent: Cloud professionals are hard to find and it is even tougher to find developers, engineers and security experts who have experience working with multiple clouds.
• Boost cost optimisation and reporting: While you can reduce spend by using multiple cloud vendors, you’ll need a cost reporting and optimisation tool to efficiently manage the financial aspects of using multiple cloud services.
• Reduce security risks: When working with a multiple cloud providers your applications become more complex, giving hackers a larger attack surface and increasing the likelihood of a security breach.
• Operational inefficiencies: When your infrastructure is spread out across multiple clouds, a simple administrative task like backing up data can add additional layers of complexity.

Making the move to a multi-cloud environment demands that you take the time to weigh up the pros and cons. Want to stay informed about recent cloud trends and developments? Our monthly newsletter is the resource you need. Subscribe to the right.