The organisations pursue multi-cloud strategy for a number of reasons.
The chief drivers include
- redundancy from potential damage
- well optimised charges for storage and technology features
- performance of the applications.
Multi-cloud computing actually represents an absolutely new front for the IT professionals.
Since a single cloud provider cannot meet all requirements, some enterprises use different providers and different sets of cloud services to regain control.
The multi-cloud environment allows to mix and match multiple public cloud resources.
Usage of multiple cloud providers also reduces risk of data loss or down time owing to the failure of a provider.
However, to take full advantage of multi-cloud, you must manage and monitor cloud deployment and costs very carefully.
Here are the top tips to abide by to be successful in a multi-cloud strategy.
Select the Right Cloud Providers
Choosing the right providers for multi-cloud environment is as difficult as choosing a single provider.
Carefully evaluate all vendors to determine the name that suits both your need and your budget.
However, also remember that, as it is the case with other things, this is not permanent either.
Keep assessing the providers and when you feel that the vendor is no longer able to cater to your needs, move on.
Go for Automation
According to a popular saying, if you have to do something twice, automate it.
Your IT team will save a large amount of time if you automate cloud management activities like vulnerability scanning, patching or networking.
Automation helps to speed up the time-consuming tasks, minimising human errors.
The IT staff can also focus on the more pressing initiatives as they will be freed of a number of manual tasks.
Though the cloud providers usually use their own scripting tools, you can consider the third-party options as they are comparatively more extensive.
Establish an Access Control Plan
Security is one of the top most priorities in an IT environment.
When you follow a multi-cloud strategy, security acquires more prominence.
The connecting areas between clouds must receive special attention. Ensure that the systems can validate users, undertake commendable change management and enable multi factor authentication.
You can opt for an identity provider platform that comes with multifactor authentication.
This must support integration and federation with on-premises and multi-cloud environments.
This will allow you to centralise both enforcement as well as access management policies. Instituting the conditional access policies will also help to strengthen your security.
Manage the Infrastructure
Infrastructure management in multi-cloud environment can cause a number of obstacles. Before you jump in, make sure to test it by mapping the features you need with the tools that allow to manage them.
With multi-cloud computing acquiring more popularity, vendors develop new management tools to track resources and expenses across cloud platforms.
Multi-cloud environments are very popular today and this trend will not slow down anytime soon. One of the most significant aspects of managing this environment is tying together the tasks and data locations using a long-term strategy. This not just dictates the actions, storage or the testing priorities of an organisation, but aligns it with the rest of business too.
