Multi Cloud is the real deal for businesses.

One of the most common questions we hear from companies as they consider moving their enterprise to a multi cloud strategy is "how can I be sure this approach will work for my company?" In some ways, the question about whether or not it works for a company is really a proxy for asking if multi-cloud makes sense for an organization. The answer to that question is unequivocally, yes.

So does multi cloud work? You betcha. But why does it work for your organization? We've already talked about the central reason: Multi Cloud allows an enterprise to reduce costs associated with on-premise infrastructure and cloud services. It also provides flexibility in how IT resources are provisioned (e.g., on demand, reserved capacity, etc.) and managed (e.g., via on-premise tools or through a service provided by your cloud provider).

But there are also unique benefits of multi cloud for specific technologies including containerized applications, storage, networking, databases and many more. Let's take a closer look at how multi cloud can help you with the most common enterprise technologies.

Multi Cloud Technology Advantages

Containerized Applications

Containers enable application portability across dozens of public clouds and on-premise infrastructures. They are an elegant solution for companies that want to use multiple providers' platforms, but don't want to be locked into a single provider. Containers also provide benefits at the application level, including increased security due to their small footprint and reduced management overhead, as they can be deployed directly onto servers.

Storage

For companies who are still using legacy storage architectures, moving data to the cloud offers an opportunity to embrace new storage options that are more cost effective, better equipped to handle petabyte volumes and are more agile for enabling new applications designed with analytics in mind. For containerized applications using cloud storage, multi cloud can simplify data management by allowing IT organizations to use an API-centric approach to managing the entire data lifecycle.

Networking

The real power of public clouds is their flexibility and scalability. To provide that flexibility, they often virtualize network services to enable on-demand scaling and the automation of provisioning, configuration and management. Multi Cloud can help companies take advantage of these virtual networking capabilities when moving workloads across providers, in some cases negating the need for in-house infrastructures (e.g., routers and switches).

Databases

There are a number of multi-cloud benefits for organizations that rely on databases to drive critical applications. First, adopting a multi cloud approach allows your organization to adopt the compute engine that is most appropriate for your needs (e.g., bare metal for maximum performance, virtual machines with instant scalability, or a single machine with low latency and simplicity) while avoiding the cost and complexity of maintaining complex database infrastructures in-house. Second, multi cloud simplifies disaster recovery operations by eliminating the need to maintain data center infrastructure in different geographic regions. Finally, multi cloud gives your organization more choices for scaling and replicating databases to hundreds of servers across multiple regions, providing both high availability and the flexibility that large-scale applications demand.