Over 90% of enterprises will leverage multi-cloud environments in 2026, a significant increase from 76% in 2020, according to Gartner. Leveraging cloud services provided by multiple vendors enables businesses to achieve unmatched agility, cost-efficiency, and expanded growth opportunities. However, navigating the complexities of multi-cloud architecture requires careful planning and consideration. So, how can you adopt multiple clouds smoothly and address the most common challenges during this journey? In this article, we will explore the key steps and provide you with best practices for implementing a successful multi-cloud strategy.
Why do organizations choose a multi-cloud strategy?
Utilizing multiple cloud platforms allows businesses to choose the services that best fit their needs, enabling efficient management and the flexibility to adapt quickly to changing requirements. Here are the key advantages of multi-cloud strategy:
- Avoiding vendor lock-in: Vendor lock-in occurs when a company depends heavily on a single cloud service provider. Having multiple cloud platforms allows you to switch between vendors as needed, ensuring flexibility to address outages or cost increases by choosing an alternative option.
- Wide choice of tools: Different cloud providers excel in different areas. For example, AWS might offer the best serverless architecture, Google Cloud could lead in machine learning and data analytics, and Azure might integrate seamlessly with Microsoft enterprise tools. You can pick the most appropriate tools for your needs.
- Cost optimization: Leveraging a multi-cloud model allows organizations to compare vendors and provide optimal pricing for their IT needs. Free from single-provider constraints, businesses can choose vendors based on factors like payment flexibility, adjustable contracts, and customizable capacity.
- Greater reliability: In a failover scenario, a multi-cloud approach ensures that if one cloud provider experiences downtime, others can take over. It protects critical data and applications with backup and recovery options, ensuring business continuity during emergencies like power outages, natural disasters, or hardware failures.
- Better compliance: Different cloud providers offer distinct compliance features. By selecting them strategically, organizations can ensure their multi-cloud environment meets industry-specific regulations and standards.
- Improved flexibility and scalability: Businesses can select services based on their needs, combining different providers to create a customizable cloud environment that scales as required. This is one of the most important benefits of multi-cloud strategy for businesses with fluctuating demands, enabling them to adjust resources efficiently.
8-step strategy for adopting the multi-cloud
To streamline your multi-cloud adoption, it is crucial to design and follow a detailed plan. Our cloud experts typically create a comprehensive multi-cloud strategy, which includes the following steps:
1. Define clear objectives
When designing a multi-cloud strategy, our cloud experts begin by helping the client define their goals-boosting resilience, optimizing costs, increasing flexibility, or achieving compliance with specific regulations. These objectives drive key decisions, such as selecting the most suitable cloud providers and management tools.
We also assess the organization's workloads before multi-cloud adoption. This involves identifying specific needs such as performance, scalability, compliance, and latency requirements. Workloads should be classified based on how critical they are and their dependencies to determine their suitability for different cloud environments. Such assessment ensures the multi-cloud approach is tailored to meet both operational and technical demands.
2. Choose the right cloud providers
To make the right choice, we evaluate cloud providers based on their strengths, services, and compatibility with your specific workload needs. Key factors include specialized services for unique applications, geographic coverage to address data sovereignty requirements, and a strong commitment to compliance standards.
In addition to technical features, the quality of customer service and technical support provided by the cloud provider is equally important. Proactive support can significantly simplify the complexities of managing multi-cloud environments. Additionally, we usually examine the provider's ecosystem, including third-party tools and services, which can add flexibility and improve the functionality of your cloud environment.
Read more: Multi-cloud solutions: why does your business need them?
3. Plan for integration and interoperability
Designing a robust network topology is fundamental to ensure connectivity, performance, and reliability across multiple clouds. Secure and seamless integration among providers can be achieved through technologies such as hybrid cloud connectivity, API gateways, or service meshes.
Planning for cloud-native service utilization and ensuring interoperability are crucial for seamless communication between workloads across environments. This includes adopting compatible APIs, shared data standards, and cross-cloud orchestration tools to prevent silos and ensure cohesive operations. Regular assessments of network design help address evolving needs and maintain optimal performance.
4. Design governance, cost management, and security models
Effective governance models are key to defining roles, responsibilities, and access controls across the multi-cloud environment. Implementing advanced cost management practices, like FinOps, helps monitor and optimize expenditures. Our security experts also develop a comprehensive security framework that includes encryption, identity management, threat detection, and adherence to industry standards to protect your data and resources.
Read more: Cloud infrastructure security: 10 best practices to strengthen protection
To streamline mundane tasks and enhance operational efficiency across multiple clouds, our experts utilize automation and orchestration tools. They are essential for effectively managing workloads in a multi-cloud environment. For instance, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) automates IT infrastructure provisioning using high-level descriptive coding, simplifying and accelerating the process. Multi-cloud tools are widely used among organizations for security, cost optimization, and governance as well to maintain high operational standards and agility of multi-cloud environments. According to Statista, organizations globally most often choose security (58%), FinOps (49%), and management (49%) multi-cloud tools.
5. Create an observability framework
In addition to automation, our experts maintain visibility across all aspects of a multi-cloud environment. They utilize sophisticated tools for log aggregation, metrics collection, and real-time alerts. Centralized dashboards provide operational insights, facilitate anomaly detection, and improve troubleshooting efficiency, ensuring consistent performance and reliability.
In addition to technical tools, observability also involves setting up processes for regular system reviews and audits to continuously refine monitoring practices. Training teams to interpret observability data and respond effectively is equally critical to long-term success.
6. Plan disaster recovery and business continuity
A solid disaster recovery (DR) and a business continuity plan are a cornerstone of any multi-cloud strategy. Our cloud experts define recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs) to minimize downtime. Implementing redundancy and failover mechanisms across cloud providers is crucial to safeguard operations against potential disruptions.
Redundancy and failover mechanisms are vital to ensure seamless continuity in the face of disruptions. This may involve leveraging multiple regions or zones across cloud providers for backup and recovery. Regular testing and updates to the DR plan help maintain its effectiveness and ensure preparedness for evolving risks.
7. Define implementation phases
During this step, our cloud engineers thoroughly plan the implementation process. To fit your specific architecture design, they define the necessary steps to execute the migration, adoption, or optimization across the multi-cloud environment.
This phased implementation approach begins with pilot projects or non-critical workloads. Gradually transitioning to more significant workloads allows for incremental testing and refinement. This iterative process mitigates risks and incorporates lessons learned, leading to a more robust and effective adoption.
8. Build a skilled team
Success in a multi-cloud environment depends on assembling a team with the right expertise. It is crucial to gather skilled cloud experts to ensure team members stay current with the latest technologies. Also, we recommend fostering collaboration across departments to facilitate seamless implementation and ongoing management of the multi-cloud strategy.
Read more: Multi-cloud vs hybrid cloud: key differences and tips
Main considerations during your multi-cloud journey
A multi-cloud model has become a crucial element of enterprise digital transformation, but managing multiple clouds and services from different providers brings several common challenges:
- Architectural complexity: Managing multiple cloud environments increases operational challenges. Each provider has unique tools, interfaces, and services, requiring teams to navigate and integrate these systems into a cohesive operation. Consistently enforcing policies, security protocols, and compliance across platforms demands precise expertise and coordination.
- Security concerns: Maintaining security in a multi-cloud setup is complex. Data protection becomes more difficult as information moves between platforms with different security policies. Achieving end-to-end security and regulatory compliance requires a thorough understanding of each provider's security features and a well-integrated strategy.
- Uncontrolled costs: While a multi-vendor cloud strategy enables businesses to optimize costs by choosing services that best meet their needs, they can also increase expenses. Without proper oversight, redundant services or inefficient resource allocation can further raise the costs.
- Data silos: When data is distributed across multiple cloud platforms, organizations risk creating data silos. These silos limit visibility and hinder data analytics by preventing teams from accessing a unified view of consolidated data, making collaboration and informed decision-making more difficult.
How can N-iX help you leverage a multi-cloud approach
If you are looking for a trusted cloud consultant, N-iX is the ideal partner for creating a multi-cloud strategy that meets your specific business requirements. With over 21 years of experience and more than 200 successful cloud projects, we have extensive expertise in cloud transformation, migration, architecture redesign, governance, maintenance, and infrastructure configuration. Our team of over 400 cloud professionals can guide you through adopting a multi-vendor cloud strategy and help you avoid the common pitfalls in this way. As an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner, Microsoft Solutions Partner, and Google Cloud Platform Partner, N-iX ensures your cloud solutions are built on a solid foundation. We also comply with industry-leading security standards like PCI DSS, ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and GDPR, guaranteeing the safety of your data before, during, and after cloud adoption.
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