Debunking 5 Myths About Multi-Cloud Management

Merriam-Webster has several definitions for the word myth. One of them is “a person or thing having only imaginary or unverifiable existence.”

Not surprisingly, there are many misconceptions and outright myths circulating about the cloud and cloud management that are just that—myths. In order to debunk these myths, one must come prepared with cold, hard facts that speak truth to fable.

Myth #1: The Cloud Isn’t Safe

Enterprise workloads are moving to the cloud in droves. Forrester Consulting recently reported that 86 percent of respondents to their survey said they had already moved mission-critical workloads to multi-cloud providers or planned to in the near future.

Further, half of those respondents admitted to spending up to $50 million on cloud technology and planning to ramp up spending even further. So where is the notion that the cloud isn’t safe coming from?

Most organizations fearing cloud migration have suffered either a serious data loss or security breaches. There is also the insecurity associated with data stored on networks and servers out of their control. However, the cloud is inherently safer than employee workstations, where passwords and other confidential information might be sitting on a thumb drive or written down on a sticky note pad.

Much of this apprehension could be resolved if these organizations leveraged the security and flexibility of sharing data across multi-cloud platforms and adopted a multi-cloud management strategy.

In addition to increasing security and flexibility, multi-cloud management systems can be deployed across multiple providers that are more reliable than on-premises systems and reduce the risk of operational disruptions such as DDoS attacks. And with an integrated orchestration stack, fragmentation can be reduced and security regimes tightened up to keep out attack vectors.

You Need Complex Cloud Strategy to Support Multi-Cloud Environment

With so much of enterprise migrating applications to hybrid or multi-cloud environments, there is a wildly popular fear that the adoption of a tooth-pulling multi-cloud strategy is necessary for success.

Much of the apprehension undoubtedly starts with negotiations over service level agreements (SLAs), and some of that is understandable. However, a good multi-cloud strategy can be kept simple by adopting best practices. Seek management providers able to produce or support:

• Governance, compliance, and policy
• Assured security and identity
• Resource planning
• Transparent cost structure and optimization
• Automation and provisioning

Multi-cloud environments can be managed via a single interface and even integrate with legacy systems for maximum versatility of resources.

It’s the responsibility of CIOs and other stakeholders to track costs based on the amount of cloud services they are consuming. Security practices should be based on tiered access privileges. In other words, the KISS mantra—keep it simple ... —can also apply to multi-cloud management if the right strategy is locked down from the very beginning.

It’s Too Expensive to Have Multiple Clouds

Most of the time, when IT managers and other stakeholders find cloud management costs rising, it’s because of poor architecture and neglected traffic patterns. In order to control costs in a multi-cloud environment, it’s necessary to find and utilize the right tools for baselining and forecasting.

Best practice cloud management strategies integrate pay-as-you-go models, deploy the right storage options based on need and application requirements, and integrate advanced data and analytics tools in one location.

The Cloud Causes Staffing Constraints within My Organization

Many are concerned that cloud adoption will present challenges to IT functions and business operations because they are not necessarily on congruent pathways when it comes to resource investment and operational priorities.

In addition to deciding which data takes precedence over moving less important or irrelevant data into the cloud systems, there is the possibility that employees will not have the skills to do their job properly and it will affect business operations.

This scenario can be mitigated or avoided altogether by either shifting some operations duties over to the cloud vendor if possible and creating special transition teams skilled to train employees prior to a large scale shift of workloads over to the cloud.

Cloud Migration Is Too Difficult

Enterprise migration to the cloud comes with certain difficulties that are hard to ignore. However, there are processes and tools that can make cloud migration easier.

Automation and provisioning tools are very useful for error monitoring, log management, and other application management functions. Look for tools to automate as many routine tasks as possible and leverage automation engines capable of integration into multi-tier deployments.

Taking advantage of containerization and virtualization makes the movement of legacy apps into the cloud much easier.  Since the containerized app comes with all the necessary runtime files to work across different operating systems and doesn’t actually live on local servers, organizations tend to see better productivity out of overtasked IT departments.

Cloud migration is much easier when organizations take a good, close look at what applications are doing for them and if there are redundancies. Once resources are in the cloud and can be pulled in and out as needed, cost savings can be realized.