Multi-Cloud Management: What is it, and how can you effectively manage Multiple Cloud Platforms

| James Edmondson Last updated 3 Mar, 2023

Multi-cloud management is the administration and coordination of various cloud computing environments, often from diverse cloud providers. This may include managing resources, apps, and data across several cloud platforms and maintaining consistency and compliance across all environments.

Increasingly, enterprises are adopting a multi-cloud approach to take advantage of the benefits provided by multiple cloud providers. However, in doing so, varying challenges are presented to organizations seeking to ensure their cloud environment remains secure, compliant, and effectively managed.

Below, we offer an overview of multi-cloud management, including its benefits, problems, and techniques for managing a multi-cloud system efficiently.

On this page:

Why employ a multi-cloud environment?
Advantages of Multi-Cloud Management
Challenges of Managing Multiple Cloud Environments
Multi-Cloud Management Strategies

Why employ a multi-cloud environment?

Establishing a multi-cloud environment allows organizations to take advantage of the benefits of different cloud providers while maintaining their cloud environment’s security, compliance, and manageability.

Developing a multi-cloud management strategy enables organizations to leverage increased flexibility and scalability, improved disaster recovery and business continuity, and lower costs through vendor competition offered by a multi-cloud environment.

Additionally, it helps organizations mitigate vendor lock-in and reduce the risk of having a single point of failure. Organizations can use multiple cloud providers to ensure that their data and applications are protected in the event of a disaster or outage.

Multi-cloud management also enables organizations to comply with different regulatory requirements by using cloud providers that comply with specific regulations.

Furthermore, it allows organizations to choose the most cost-effective option for different workloads by selecting the best provider for each workload.

Advantages of Multi-Cloud Management

Multi-cloud architecture combines the most advantageous aspects of two cloud service providers to produce the most sophisticated piece of technology.

Although hybrid and multi-cloud are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a significant distinction between the two. Private clouds are always a part of hybrid clouds, normally treated as a single entity.

On the other hand, multi-clouds always contain several public cloud services but are not required to include a private cloud.

Combining the finest of two distinct cloud service providers will give your IT strategy limitless potential and flexibility. Here are some of the advantages offered by a multi-cloud approach:

Increased flexibility and scalability: By using multiple cloud providers, organizations can take advantage of the different services and pricing models offered by each provider. This allows businesses to choose the best fit for their needs and quickly scale their resources as needed.
Improved disaster recovery and business continuity: By using multiple cloud providers, businesses can ensure that their data and applications are protected in the event of a disaster or outage. This can be accomplished through the use of cloud-to-cloud replication, cross-cloud load balancing, and other strategies.
Enhanced security and compliance: Multi-cloud management can help organizations improve their overall security posture by using different cloud providers to store and process different data types. For example, an organization might use one cloud provider for sensitive data and another for less sensitive data. Additionally, multi-cloud management can help organizations comply with different regulatory requirements by using cloud providers that comply with specific regulations.
Lower costs through vendor competition: By using multiple cloud providers, organizations can take advantage of vendor competition to negotiate better prices and terms for their cloud services. Additionally, organizations can use different cloud providers to run different types of workloads, allowing them to choose the most cost-effective option for each workload.
Mitigating vendor lock-in: Using multiple cloud providers allows organizations to reduce the risk of vendor lock-in. Organizations can quickly move their workloads to a different provider if necessary by not relying on a single provider.

Challenges of Managing Multiple Cloud Environments

Managing multiple cloud environments can be complex and time-consuming.

Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments are correctly configured, their data is properly protected, and their applications are properly deployed and maintained.

Additionally, organizations must be able to monitor and troubleshoot issues across different cloud environments.

The complexity of managing multiple cloud environments

Managing multiple cloud environments can be complex and time-consuming for organizations. This complexity arises from several factors, including:

Cloud providers have different service offerings, pricing models, and management interfaces, making it challenging to manage resources across multiple environments.
Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments are configured, their data is properly protected, and their applications are correctly deployed and maintained. This requires a high level of knowledge and expertise in different cloud environments.
Monitoring and troubleshooting issues across different cloud environments can be challenging, as cloud providers have different monitoring and logging capabilities.

Integration and interoperability issues

Integrating and making different cloud environments work together can be challenging. Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments can communicate and share data and that their applications can run seamlessly across different cloud environments.

Integration and interoperability issues can arise when different cloud environments need to communicate and share data and when applications need to run seamlessly across different cloud environments.

Some examples of integration and interoperability issues include:

Data Integration: Cloud providers may have different data storage and processing capabilities, making it difficult to integrate and share data across different cloud environments. Additionally, different cloud providers may use different data formats, making it difficult to convert data between different environments.
Application Integration: Applications deployed in different cloud environments may need to communicate and share data. This can be challenging, especially if the applications use different protocols or technologies. Additionally, organizations may need to rewrite their applications to work seamlessly across different cloud environments.
Network Integration: Organizations may need to connect their different cloud environments to one another over a network. This can be challenging, especially if cloud environments use different network protocols or technologies.
Security Integration: Organizations may need to ensure that their different cloud environments are consistent. This cannot be easy, especially if cloud providers have different security requirements.
Compliance Integration: Organizations may need to ensure that their different cloud environments comply with relevant regulations. This can be difficult, especially if cloud providers have different compliance requirements.

Organizations can overcome these integration and interoperability issues using different integration and interoperability tools and technologies, such as data integration tools, application integration tools, network integration tools, and security and compliance management tools.

Additionally, organizations can use cloud service brokerage (CSB) to manage their multi-cloud environment.

It acts as an intermediary between organizations and cloud providers. It can help organizations choose the right cloud provider for their specific needs, manage their cloud services, and optimize costs.

Difficulty in maintaining consistency across different cloud providers

Maintaining consistency across different cloud providers can be difficult for organizations, as different cloud providers have different service offerings, pricing models, and management interfaces.

Some examples of consistency issues include:

Configuration Consistency: Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments are correctly configured. This can be difficult if cloud providers have different management interfaces and require different configurations.
Security Consistency: Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments are consistent in terms of security. This can be difficult if cloud providers have different security requirements, such as encryption standards or identity and access management protocols.
Compliance Consistency: Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments comply with relevant regulations. This can be difficult if different cloud providers have different compliance requirements, such as data protection laws or auditing requirements.
Management Consistency: Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments are consistent regarding management. This can be difficult if cloud providers have different management interfaces and require different management processes.
Monitoring Consistency: Organizations must ensure that they can consistently monitor their different cloud environments. This can be challenging if cloud providers have different monitoring and logging capabilities.

Organizations can overcome these consistency issues using different governance and management frameworks, cloud service brokerage, cloud cost optimization, cloud security, compliance management, and cloud automation and orchestration.

These strategies can help organizations establish policies and procedures for managing their multi-cloud environment and ensure that their different cloud environments are consistent regarding security, compliance, and management.

Difficulty in ensuring compliance and security

Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments comply with relevant regulations and that their data is appropriately protected.

This can be difficult to achieve, especially if cloud providers have different compliance and security requirements.

Ensuring compliance and security across multiple cloud environments can be difficult for organizations, as different cloud providers have different security and compliance requirements.

Some examples of compliance and security issues include:

Security: Organizations must ensure that their data is adequately protected across different cloud environments. This can be difficult if cloud providers have different security requirements, such as encryption standards or identity and access management protocols. Additionally, cloud providers may have different security certifications and compliance standards, making it challenging for organizations to ensure that their data is secure across multiple environments.
Compliance: Organizations must ensure that their different cloud environments comply with relevant regulations. This can be difficult if different cloud providers have different compliance requirements, such as data protection laws or auditing requirements. Additionally, different cloud providers may have different certifications and compliance standards, making it challenging for organizations to ensure that their environments are compliant across multiple environments.
Auditing: Organizations must ensure that they can consistently audit their different cloud environments. This can be difficult if cloud providers have different auditing capabilities and requirements.
Data Sovereignty: Organizations must ensure that their data is stored and processed in compliance with data sovereignty laws and regulations. This cannot be easy if cloud providers have different geographical locations and data storage facilities.

Identity, access, encryption, and vulnerability management may help organizations address these compliance and security challenges.

Cloud service brokerage (CSB) may assist enterprises in picking the correct cloud provider and complying with laws by managing their multi-cloud environment.

Organizations should implement incident management and response rules to swiftly identify and react to security problems across various cloud environments.

Difficulty in cost optimization

Organizations can face difficulty optimizing their costs as different cloud providers have different pricing models, and the cost optimization strategies for one provider may not work for another.

Cost optimization can be challenging in a multi-cloud environment, as different cloud providers have different pricing models, and the cost optimization strategies for one provider may not work for another.

Some examples of cost optimization issues include:

Comparing Costs Across Different Cloud Providers: Organizations must understand the different pricing models and costs associated with cloud providers to choose the most cost-effective option for their specific needs. This can be difficult if different cloud providers have different pricing models and cost structures, requiring a high level of knowledge and expertise in cloud pricing.
Managing And Monitoring Costs: Organizations must manage and monitor their costs across different cloud providers to optimize their spending. This can be difficult if cloud providers have different management interfaces and cost management tools.
Managing Variable Costs: Organizations must manage variable costs such as data transfer and storage costs, which can vary depending on the usage and can be difficult to predict.
Managing Reserved Instances: Organizations must manage reserved instances, which are cost-effective but challenging to manage across different cloud providers.
Managing Spot Instances: Organizations must manage spot instances, which can be a cost-effective option but can be challenging to predict the availability and pricing across different cloud providers.

Organizations may employ reserved instances, spot instances, or other cloud pricing structures to solve these cost optimization challenges.

Organizations may also utilize cloud service brokerage (CSB) to manage their multi-cloud infrastructure and optimize expenses using cost management tools. Cost allocation, planning, and forecasting may also assist firms in optimizing cloud expenses.

Multi-Cloud Management Strategies

Cloud Governance and Management Frameworks: Organizations can use cloud governance and management frameworks to establish policies and procedures for managing their multi-cloud environment. This can include security, compliance, cost management, and incident management guidelines. Governance frameworks also help to define roles and responsibilities for different teams and individuals within the organization.

Cloud Service Brokerage: Organizations can use cloud service brokerage (CSB) to manage their multi-cloud environment. CSB is a third-party service that acts as an intermediary between organizations and cloud providers. It can help organizations choose the right cloud provider for their specific needs, manage their cloud services, and optimize costs.
Cloud Cost Optimization: Organizations can use different cost optimization strategies to reduce the costs of their multi-cloud environment. This can include using reserved instances, spot instances, or other pricing models cloud providers offer. Additionally, organizations can use different cost management tools to monitor and optimize their cloud costs.
Cloud Security and Compliance Management: Organizations can use additional cloud security and compliance management tools to ensure their multi-cloud environment is secure and compliant. This can include identity and access management tools, encryption, and vulnerability management. Additionally, organizations can use different compliance management tools to ensure that their multi-cloud environment complies with relevant regulations.

Cloud Automation and Orchestration: Organizations can use cloud automation and orchestration tools to manage their multi-cloud environment. These tools can help organizations automate the deployment and scaling of their resources and manage their data and applications. Additionally, these tools can help organizations ensure that their cloud environments are consistent.

Conclusion

Multi-cloud management is growing as more companies use it. Multiple cloud providers provide flexibility, scalability, disaster recovery, and vendor competition, lowering costs. It also prevents vendor lock-in and single points of failure.

Still, managing many cloud environments takes time. Organizations must properly set up, protect, deploy, and manage their cloud infrastructures, data, and applications. Enterprises must also monitor and address issues in several cloud environments.

A well-defined multi-cloud management strategy and the right tools and technology may help organizations manage their multi-cloud infrastructure and maximize its benefits. Cloud governance, management, brokerage, cost optimization, security, and orchestration are examples.

Multi-cloud management is complex, but it may benefit businesses. It enables enterprises to use several cloud service providers to improve IT infrastructure resilience, security, and affordability.