What is a multicloud?

As soon as you want to learn more about cloud solutions, it is common to find yourself confronted with various technical terms. The multicloud in particular is one of the expressions that may seem obscure. This is why in this dedicated article, we explain to you what multi-cloud is, how it works or even what are its advantages and disadvantages.

What does multicloud mean?

Multicloud refers to an approach to cloud computing where The client company uses several cloud service providers simultaneously. In addition, these clouds are often public clouds, but it is also possible to design a multi-cloud architecture composed of several private clouds.

With such an organization, data, applications, or workloads are like this distributed across different clouds.

How does multicloud work?

In the context of multicloud, operation can be ensured by manual, automated and/or centralized management.

• Manual management: The company must necessarily manage each cloud individually according to its needs.
• Automated management: It is a good way to become more efficient by facilitating monitoring or provisioning tasks.
• Centralization: Thanks to a platform dedicated to multicloud, it is possible to access a single interface allowing to centralize the various clouds that make up the multicloud.

Why use multiple clouds?

While it may seem counterintuitive for an organization to operate multiple clouds, this approach In fact, it meets very relevant use cases.

Increase resilience

The first reason to use multicloud is naturally to increase resilience. If an ISP encounters an outage, operations are not affected. In the event of a major incident in a data center, multicloud is also a good way to protect yourself from any loss of data thanks to the redundancy of information.

Reducing dependency

One of the weak points of the public cloud is the user's dependence on the service provider. By opting for multicloud, you have the possibility to distributing workloads between different cloud players and thus choose the appropriate online service or infrastructure for each use.

Optimize costs

By remaining open to all providers and by allowing competition to play, you reduce the costs of using the multicloud environment, because you can compare the different rates offered. Then all you have to do is select the most efficient and competitive cloud solution for each use.

Meet compliance requirements

Let's add that the requirements related to the protection of personal data and compliance are among the major challenges of the cloud. Multicloud is ideal for hosting data within data centers spread across different geographic regions in order to comply with local regulations.

Multicloud architecture

The first founding element of this architecture is including different cloud service providers in your strategy. It can be Google, Wimi or Microsoft. Once the different clouds are identified, it is necessary to connect them and ensure that security is maximized in order to obtain an efficient multi-cloud.

Note that the complexity of such a cloud approach requires particular attention to security issues when deploying and operating various cloud solutions. La identity management and access control in particular must be centralized and treated rigorously in order to facilitate, but also secure, access to data, functionalities and resources. In this way, all tasks related to multicloud such as document sharing For businesses, outsourcing calculations or storing files will be smooth and secure.

Advantages and disadvantages of a multi-cloud strategy

Any cloud strategy, whether it's a private cloud, public cloud, or multi-cloud approach, has advantages and disadvantages. For this reason, there is no better cloud than the one that most precisely answers your business problems. In order to select the right cloud architecture, it is therefore essential to find out exactly about its advantages and disadvantages.

Benefits of multi-cloud

• Flexibility and increased choice: By selecting different cloud solutions, you gain agility, as you can choose a provider for every need. This makes it easier to negotiate prices, diversifies the choice of service providers and optimizes the performance of applications.
• Better cloud resilience: Thanks to data redundancy and the use of several suppliers, you protect yourself from data loss or application availability problems.
• Removing vendor lock-down: By being too dependent, migrating workloads becomes complex. By adopting multiple cloud solutions from the start, you will save time and simplify procedures.
• Optimization of operational costs: By involving the competition, you can benefit from attractive rates and even promotions. Opting for the most efficient cloud player for each use is also a way to systematically choose the best value for money.
• Simplified compliance management: Hosting data in data centers spread across different geographic areas is ideal for complying with compliance issues.

Disadvantages of multi-cloud

• Increase in complexity: By opting for multiple clouds instead of one, it's obvious that you're making cloud management more complex. It is then necessary to simultaneously manage different providers, cloud environments and tools.
• Cloud management difficulty: Complex multi-cloud management requires the use of external consultants, recruiting talent or relying on the expertise of service providers.
• Requires key skills: In order to continuously manage the multicloud, it is strongly recommended to set up a dedicated team. Her mission will be to select suppliers, understand the cloud architecture and manage potential problems by staying in contact with the various cloud providers.
• Security issues: By distributing data and applications across clouds, it can be difficult to ensure a consistent and consistent level of security.

What are the differences between multicloud and hybrid cloud?

A multicloud, as we have seen, refers to the simultaneous use of several public clouds or private clouds. La Definition of hybrid cloud is different, because the latter combines elements of the public cloud and the private cloud and then distributes the needs between these two environments.