Multi-cloud management: How to make multi-cloud work

Simply moving to the cloud is so last decade. Today, it's all about maximising resilience and controlling costs with a multi-cloud strategy, with organisations increasingly spreading business functions across two or more cloud service providers.

According to Flexera's 2023 State of the Cloud report, 87% of respondents reported having a multi-cloud strategy, while 72% are taking a hybrid approach by combining the use of both public and private clouds. The multi-cloud trend is expected to accelerate.

This approach allows organisations to take advantage of the strengths and offerings of different cloud providers depending on their business needs. And it's a hedge against the old adage: Don't put all your eggs in one basket (or cloud).

There are two major advantages to multi-cloud environments, and there's one proven way to get there: my company's migration tool.

Multi-cloud advantages are:

Protection against single-point failure. Major cloud providers continue to demonstrate security superiority compared to on-premises environments. Microsoft says it spends more than $1 billion annually on cybersecurity across its platforms, including Azure.

They plan to add CyberX to help manage connections to IoT devices, and they recently bought Blue Talon to help simplify data privacy and governance.

Google's enterprise security company, Chronicle, has been integrated into Google Cloud, and the company continues to acquire third-party security providers like Actifio to protect business-critical workloads.

With all that said, it's a mistake to see cloud providers as completely invulnerable. Multi-cloud management means a single failure, whether it's a breach, cyberattack, or natural disaster, doesn't shut down an entire business.

Minimising vendor lock-in. Vendor lock-in can result in higher costs and limits on growth or functionality. Companies that commit to a single cloud provider will build their infrastructure, applications and services around that vendor's proprietary technologies.

That stuck feeling can limit an organisation's ability to adapt to changing market conditions or take advantage of better offerings from competing cloud providers.

Another problem with vendor lock-in is the potential for escalating costs. Cloud service providers often offer attractive initial pricing, but as usage and dependency increases, costs rise. Migrating away from a locked-in cloud provider often entails re-architecting applications and data to fit the new environment.

However, the migration itself is very affordable with a tool like such as my company offers.

Multi-cloud migrations include:

Implementing a multi-cloud strategy begins with a thoughtful strategy. A choice of cloud providers will depend on factors unique to an organisation, including location and function of business units, level of separation or collaboration necessary, security, compliance and volume of data.

Planning a migration project is likely to be more involved than a simple tenant-to-tenant migration. Make sure there's enough time to assess the environments at each source and each destination.

Part of the assessment includes understanding how data is currently being accessed and used and if a particular cloud provider offers benefits above others. Identify every workload and map it to its destination. As with any migration, this is also a perfect time to archive or scrub any data that doesn't need to take up valuable computing space.

My company's migration app handles multi-cloud migrations just like any other migration. The process is the same, and tech can easily specify multiple source and destination tenants. Just like any migration, it's prudent to have a knowledgeable team at the helm.

We offer many ways to learn and get support for each migration project. For multi-cloud cloud migrations, be sure to review step-by-step videos on the relevant topics, including Google Workspace set up and migration, SharePoint and OneDrive set up and migration, and Teams set-up and migration.

The solution also has extensive free documentation, guides, and case studies covering the wide range of migration scenarios it can handle. Personalised support is also available from migration experts who can help you set up a project or troubleshoot a vexing challenge.

For an organisation embarking on a multi-cloud strategy, contact us for help in filling out the migration portion of the plan. Those who are ready to start will find the licences they need here.