Miguel Sanchez / Nitel
In today's fast-paced business environment, digital transformation is no longer optional—it's essential. Companies must respond quickly to customers, streamline operations, and innovate across all departments. This transformation often hinges on a robust cloud enablement strategy.
The cloud offers speed, ease of use, and scalability. As consumers increasingly expect instant gratification—the "Amazon effect," for example—businesses must adapt.
But what happens when employees seek tools that are faster and more accessible than those provided by their organization? They often turn to readily available cloud services, inadvertently creating a multi-cloud environment.
Cloud usage rising
Multi-cloud refers to using multiple cloud computing services within a single architecture. This can include various combinations of public, private, and edge clouds. A typical example is using services like Google Drive and Dropbox for document storage and transfer.
The "why" behind multi-cloud adoption is crucial. It provides access to flexible, scalable resources and processes that significantly enhance customer experience (CX). Improved CX often translates to increased revenues—just look at Amazon's growth trajectory.However, it's important to note that over 90% of cloud usage is not enterprise-ready.
While services like Dropbox are convenient, they may not align with a company's security and compliance requirements.Virtualization and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platforms form the backbone of cloud computing. While some companies maintain private clouds, many are adopting a hybrid model or moving entirely to public clouds like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. This shift raises essential questions about data location, especially for industries with strict compliance requirements like finance and healthcare.Managing a multi-cloud environment requires specialized tools.
Solutions like Chef, Puppet, and Ansible offer automation, security, and performance monitoring capabilities. These tools can optimize performance, enhance security, and reduce costs by identifying and shutting down unused resources.Data transfer between clouds presents another challenge. While public internet can be used, it may not meet performance and security needs. Cloud edge network providers offer solutions that enable secure, high-performance data transfer with just a few clicks.
To effectively manage a multi-cloud environment, organizations need to:
1. Identify all cloud services in use across the company
2. Understand who is using these services and why
3. Determine where data is stored and processed
4. Implement appropriate management and security tools
5. Consider the total cost of ownership, including licensing fees for management tools
The cost of inaction
While managing over 1,000 cloud services may seem daunting, the cost of inaction—regarding security risks, performance issues, and poor customer experience—is far greater.
Remember, "the cloud is just someone else's computer." Regardless of where your data resides or who owns the infrastructure, it's crucial to maintain visibility, security, and performance across your entire multi-cloud environment.
By embracing a strategic approach to multi-cloud management, organizations can harness the full power of digital transformation, enhancing agility, efficiency, and customer satisfaction in an increasingly cloud-first world.
Miguel Sanchez is a solutions architect for Nitel. He has over 30 years of experience in the networking industry, specifically in network Security, network engineering, network architecture, and network virtualization. Miguel attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.