More companies and agencies now use various computing environments for storing, accessing, and managing their data. When building a cross-platform solution, there are numerous alternative configurations you may use. In a multi-cloud approach, public cloud platforms can link each other. You can also mix the public cloud in a hybrid cloud architecture with the private cloud or on-site servers.
How can you determine whether your business has the proper multi-cloud or hybrid cloud architecture? And how are these helping your organization? Let’s find out –
Multi-Cloud
The usage of multi-clouds is rather frequent. According to a Gartner survey, 81% of public cloud consumers collaborate with two or more cloud providers. While many of the same services are provided by public cloud providers, several aspects set them apart. Businesses may want to make use of the benefits of several cloud platforms without committing entirely to one or the other.
How multi-cloud is helping businesses –
- By taking a multi-cloud approach, businesses can find and use platforms and applications that align with current practices, rather than against them. If these practices change, it will be much easier to replace one supplier with another than it is to move all of a company’s operations from one platform to another. Due to this, businesses are now more agile. They can now respond better to changes in protocols, compliance, as well as best practices.
- The multi-cloud approach helps alleviate this situation by providing a platform for departments and teams to find the most suitable solution for them and by maintaining an open communication channel with the IT department. In a single cloud approach, this leads to shadow IT; In a multi-cloud approach, it enables the team to be more efficient, innovative, and accountable.
- The multi-cloud approach allows companies not only to choose solutions but also to choose where to host these solutions. Therefore, companies can choose providers whose servers are very close to customers or offices, thereby reducing latency and improving network performance.
Through a well-planned multi-cloud approach, it is easier to maintain and operate in the event of a system failure, and it is easier to recover after a failure. If a single cloud application fails, your business can run in its absence until the service is restored. In this case, using multiple platforms for a multi-cloud approach to similar workflows is also helpful, as the workflow can simply be transferred from a closed provider to an active provider.
Hybrid Cloud
The multi-cloud combines two or more public cloud platforms, while the hybrid cloud combines the public cloud with private cloud services and/or on-premises solutions. This can be an ideal data architecture for companies that are not prepared to shut down their data centers and for companies that need to run their private cloud environments.
Another difference in hybrid cloud is that the resources used in this strategy often work together. This is in contrast to a multi-cloud architecture, where each cloud platform can be used for different purposes, such as storing on one platform and performing data analysis on another.
Multi-cloud, by most definitions, is a form of hybrid cloud architecture, which means that these two strategies can be combined. A hybrid cloud configuration can include multiple public clouds and one or more private clouds. The main benefit of any cloud architecture is that it can be customized according to business needs. Naturally, the needs of each company will be different and their cloud environment will reflect this.
How hybrid-cloud is helping businesses –
- The hybrid cloud enables companies to keep up with the response to customer needs through faster innovation, without shaking the entire organization when migrating to a full cloud environment. With the right hybrid cloud provider, be it a virtual machine or a container, migrating between environments can be as simple as the push of a button, allowing teams to work and collaborate quickly and efficiently no matter where they are.
- The hybrid cloud model is monitored on an all-encompassing dashboard, providing comprehensive insight and cost control of the entire environment. By better monitoring which resources are misallocated or over-provisioned, hybrid cloud provides a major way to reduce costs. A recent survey proved this, reporting that organizations that adopted the hybrid cloud model reduced IT costs by an average of 24%.
Another benefit of the hybrid cloud is that it can improve the customer experience. The cloud can accelerate time to market, allowing companies to respond quickly to customer needs and requirements while rapidly developing new products and services. For example, using a hybrid cloud model, medical institutions can interact with patients in real-time and financial institutions can better monitor the complete financial picture of their customers.
Final Words
One report indicates that companies are already prioritizing hybrid and multi-cloud solutions, with organizations using an average of 4.9 public and private cloud platforms from various vendors. According to reports, among public cloud users alone, 62% use at least two unique cloud platforms, and 74% of companies describe their strategy as a hybrid cloud or a multi-cloud.
However, many organizations still have a long way to go in learning to manage multiple cloud environments. Despite the prevalence of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, only 38% of IBM Institute for Business Value companies use multi-cloud management tools and programs to view security and spend. Forrester’s results are similar, showing that only 42% of public cloud users regularly optimize cloud spending.
From the beginning, Microsoft Azure has been a hybrid design, providing customers with consistency and flexibility to meet their business needs and allowing them to invent purposefully. This is one of the many reasons why the world’s leading brands trust their business to run on Azure.
Azure Arc provides simplified management, faster application development, and consistent Azure services. Easily organize, control, and protect Windows, Linux, SQL Server, and Kubernetes clusters in data centers, edge, and multi-cloud environments directly from Azure. Without sacrificing central visibility and control, develop, design, and you can create cloud-native applications anytime, anywhere. Gain Azure innovation and cloud advantages by learning Azure.
Upskill your workforce
Cognixia’s Microsoft Azure training prepares learners for the Microsoft AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator certification exam.
The course offered will prepare you for the Microsoft AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator certification exam.
With this course, IT professionals will learn how to manage their Azure subscriptions, secure identities, administer the infrastructure, configure virtual networking, connect Azure & on-premises sites, implement storage solutions, manage network traffic, create & scale virtual machines, implement web apps & containers, back up and share data, as well as monitor their solution in this course.
In this AZ-104 training, you will learn the following –
- Module 1: Identity
- Module 2: Governance and Compliance
- Module 3: Azure Administration
- Module 4: Virtual Networking
- Module 5: Intersite Connectivity
- Module 6: Network Traffic Management
- Module 7: Azure Storage
- Module 8: Azure Virtual Machines
- Module 9: Serverless Computing
- Module 10: Data Protection
- Module 11: Monitoring
