Multicloud, which, as the name implies, consists of using multiple cloud solutions, public or private, reduces this vendor dependency. The approach has other advantages. By multiplying accounts, a company can choose, on a case-by-case basis, the provider that offers the best value for a given service (storage, development environment, computing power).
In the field of innovation, an organization will go to the most mature provider in the “as-a-service” field of machine learning, IoT (Internet of Things) or blockchain. By using several cloud service portfolios, it will be able to respond more precisely to the expectations of business managers and thus reduce the shadow IT phenomenon.
Business continuity and sovereignty
By having the ability to switch from one cloud to another in the event of an outage or performance drop, an organization also gains resiliency. Multicloud can be used as part of a business continuity or disaster recovery plan (BCP, DRP) by using a public cloud as a backup infrastructure. For multinationals, the multicloud can complement the coverage of its traditional provider in a given geography.
It also addresses issues of sovereignty. While American hyperscalers – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Coud – dominate the public cloud market, they are subject to the principle of extraterritoriality specific to US law, which governs the Patriot Act and the Cloud Act.
This legal risk can lead an organization to select a national flagship – OVHcloud, 3DS Outscale, Scaleway – to host sensitive data or applications.
89% of companies worldwide are pursuing a multi-cloud strategy
For all the right reasons, a growing number of companies have adopted this approach. A recent Flexera report reveals that 89% of companies worldwide are pursuing a multi-cloud strategy. In france, nearly 66% of decision makers surveyed in an IBM study say that dependence on cloud providers is a significant barrier to improving business performance.
For all that, the move to the multicloud is not a smooth one. Despite the widespread use of open source technologies, the portability of a service from one cloud to another is hampered by proprietary adherences unique to each ecosystem.
Through various initiatives – Anthos and BigQuery Omni from Google Cloud, Azure Arc from Microsoft Azure, VMware Cloud on AWS – the public cloud market is trying to ensure the reversibility of its solutions, even if the movement remains in its infancy. At the European level, the Gaia-X community project aims to guarantee the interoperability of existing cloud services on the basis of common standards.
Cost explosion and cyber risks
Another complaint is that multicloud would encourage the explosion of cloud costs. By multiplying supplier accounts and administration consoles, a company finds it more difficult to control its budget. Providers make things even more complicated by proposing particularly complex price lists that are difficult to compare, since they are based on their own units of measurement.
Multi-cloud makes it even more important to use the FinOps approach, which aims to monitor and optimize cloud costs without cutting back on performance. An enterprise can also use a cloud broker or a Cloud Management Platform (CMP) solution from VMware, NetApp, Red Hat or Cisco. In addition to resource provisioning and orchestration functions, this type of platform allows you to control usage and reduce costs.
Finally, there is the cyber aspect. By multiplying the number of clouds, a company mechanically increases its risk exposure surface. It has to juggle between several administration consoles, grant access rights for the different accounts, and become familiar with the configuration and patching policy of each platform. This multiplication of entry points requires constant monitoring and vigilance.