A multi-cloud is a system composed of more than one public or private cloud service. Multi-cloud is similar to the concept of a hybrid cloud, but with an important difference: in a multi-cloud, there are several cloud environments but they could be completely separate, or run different workloads. In a hybrid cloud, there are more than one cloud environments, which are tightly integrated and allow seamless transfer of data and workloads between clouds.
Multi-cloud is very widely adopted—according to IBM, as of 2018, 85% of enterprises operated a multi-cloud. There are several reasons multi-clouds have become so common:
Cost and lock-in—the classic use case for multi-cloud is to give organizations leverage and avoid lock into a specific cloud provider. If you run on, and are integrated with, several clouds, you can move workloads to the cloud provider that offers the best value for money.
Shadow IT—organizations increasingly see software deployed by teams without coordination or permission from the central IT organization. Many of these shadow deployments occur on public clouds, which inadvertently creates a multi-cloud.
Variable cloud capabilities—each public cloud provider or private cloud platform provides different features, and specific workloads or projects within the organization may not be satisfied with a specific platform’s offerings. Making everyone happy with just one cloud provider or private cloud technology proves difficult over time.
Geography—each public cloud provider has data centers in different geographical locations. If you need proximity to specific branch offices or end-users, you may find it optimal to run workloads on specific regions deployed by several cloud providers.
Business continuity—having multiple clouds can improve your resiliency to outages or configuration issues that are specific to any one cloud provider.
In the rest of this article, we’ll offer several critical considerations you must be aware of, as you plan your multi cloud management strategy.