IT infrastructure comes in many forms i.e. influenced by different factors, diverse varieties tend to coexist. The diverse infrastructure is not out of choice but it is the result of a series of choices that were right at the time they were made. Multi-cloud environments tend to have a set of central management tools to manage the different pieces of the specific cloud environment. Contrary to the view it doesn’t need to be complex and unwieldy. It does not need to consume large IT bandwidth, make managing it and portability complex. It can be created to deliver the required results with ease. A few approaches that increase an organization’s chances of a successful hybrid or multi-cloud migration are as follows:
Business goals should drive the multi-cloud strategy. There needs to be a clear and strong mapping between the strategy and business goals. It is also essential to have specific goals related to efficiency, cost-saving or revenue that firmly determine the choice of the strategy. An unprejudiced approach will help in the long run, inclination to a particular technology should not be the primary determinant in choosing a strategy.
Specific cloud and software partners should be selected based on the essential parameters of the business. The partnership can then be grown effectively with the use of transparent, unambiguous and user-friendly policies and tools.
The ease of use is determined by tools that seamlessly and intelligently integrate across the services being used i.e. data, infrastructure, applications, business processes, and web hosting services.
Technologies that the cloud providers offer should enable workload migration across a wide range of environments. This can be facilitated by following accepted standards and portability tools.
Security is a key ingredient of a successful and effective multi-cloud strategy. Security should be defined as a central policy which can be included with the workload migration when required.
A common point of management is required to keep a close watch on the sophisticated multi-cloud environment at work.
Easy plug-and-play in the multi-cloud environment is required for a quick setup. This will avoid chaos across different clouds and conflict between business and IT.
Risks can be mitigated with regular and timely backup and recovery thereby balancing business and technology.
Consolidated billing across partners should be encouraged to make administration easy.
A culture that promotes trust and transparency must be fostered across the organization, for the successful execution of a sound multi-cloud strategy.
When the multi-cloud strategy is created based on business reasons then best fit cloud partners will be selected. The strategy will not only mitigate risks but also result in cost-savings. An important point to note is that a hybrid multi-cloud environment should be adopted only if it’s absolutely necessary. The decision arrived at should be made in a completely unbiased way. Factors such as flexibility, agility, compatibility, and portability are most essential for sound enterprise architecture.
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The Byte Guy Joined: October 12th, 2017 Articles Posted: 35
