What Is Multicloud Infrastructure? Definition, Components, and Management Best Practices

Multicloud infrastructure is defined as a cloud environment that allows enterprises to use two or more cloud platforms. Multicloud infrastructure often relies on public cloud. A company’s cloud environment generally needs to leverage at least two public cloud services for a â€˜multicloud’ tag.Â

In a multicloud setup, each cloud can be used to deliver a particular service or application as per the organization’s needs. Different enterprises can configure their multicloud infrastructure differently, using a combination of private, public, and edge cloud solutions to meet business requirements. This article explains the concept of multicloud infrastructure and shares some best practices for 2021.

What Is a Multicloud Infrastructure?
5 Key Components of Multicloud Infrastructure
Top 5 Best Practices to Manage Enterprise Multicloud Infrastructure in 2021

What Is a Multicloud Infrastructure?

Multicloud infrastructure is a cloud environment that allows enterprises to use two or more cloud platforms. Multicloud infrastructure often relies on public cloud. A company’s cloud environment generally needs to leverage at least two public cloud services for a â€˜multicloud’ tag.Â

Multicloud infrastructure combines on-premise activities with applications and services operating on multiple public cloud platforms, allowing companies to leverage the upsides of each vendor while mitigating the disadvantages. Enterprises are increasingly adopting multicloud infrastructure to offload major non-critical databases and information processes, such as application stacks, message queues, load balancing, batch processing, and web traffic management.

What Is Multi-Cloud

Companies primarily use multicloud infrastructure to fight the risk of data loss or downtime caused by localized or single-vendor component failure. Besides, multicloud infrastructure also helps reduce the risk of vendor lock-in and achieves far-reaching business and technological goals, including higher price competitiveness, faster speed, increased capacity, and added features.

It enables companies to reach optimal performance levels and minimize latency through heightened data sovereignty. By adopting multicloud infrastructure, organizations can place servers and related resources as close to their end users as possible. Today, the security ecosystem of leading cloud infrastructure providers is cutting-edge. Cloud vendors adopt security solutions and practices that are as good as, or sometimes even better than those used by leading enterprise data centers. As such, most clients no longer treat security concerns as a reason to avoid the adoption of multicloud infrastructure.

However, it is worth noting that adopting multicloud is not simply â€˜shifting’ on-premise databases to the cloud over the course of a few days. Companies must involve software engineers and cybersecurity professionals to make full use of programmable and customizable features of public cloud infrastructure and maximize the security and efficiency of online company data.Â

At the same time, client companies need to understand that cloud security is not just the responsibility of the provider but a shared responsibility. By adopting security best practices and automated cybersecurity solutions, human error is minimized, thus reducing the risk of successful cyberattacks. Automating the tracking of security controls also helps ensure thorough compliance with cloud-centric regulations across the world.

Also Read: Cloud Vs On-premise Comparison: Key Differences and Similarities

5 Key Components of Multicloud Infrastructure

Now that we have understood the basics of multicloud infrastructure, let’s learn about the five key components of multicloud infrastructure.

Key Components of Multicloud Infrastructure

1. Load balancing server

Server load balancing (SLB) is a prominent component of multicloud infrastructure. It intercepts web traffic and reroutes it to multiple servers to balance server loads. When companies are faced with increased web traffic, they can rely on SLB to distribute this traffic among several servers through network-based, software-defined cloud platforms.

Larger corporations often have to engage in load balancing across numerous geographies. For this, they rely on intelligent traffic distribution through global server load balancing (GSLB). While some companies maintain on-premise SLB servers in their own data centers, most organizations opt for hosted SLB solutions in private, public, or multicloud environments.

By relying on multicloud to distribute incoming network traffic, SLBs can boost the efficiency of application delivery to customers and ensure a smooth application experience. Some benefits of multicloud-based server load balancing include:

Scalability: Multicloud SLBs can increase or decrease server resource allocation based on spikes or troughs in web traffic. Multicloud environments that are optimized for SLB are best suited to handle fluctuations in traffic and keeping application performance optimized.
Robust backup: By using numerous cloud servers for application or website delivery, companies are safeguarded against instances of application or vendor downtime and hardware failure. Multicloud-enabled SLBs can automatically shift traffic to operational servers with close to zero impact on customers if a vendor, server, or cluster of servers ends up non-operational.
Easy maintenance: Companies that use SLBs distributed across multiple geographies and cloud environments can easily schedule maintenance at any time without having to worry about the impact of server downtime.

2. Application server

Application servers are specifically earmarked for running applications. Multicloud application servers provide companies with an efficient environment to test, run, and host applications. Typically, cloud servers designed to run web pages may not be optimized to operate demanding web applications.Â

However, a multicloud infrastructure optimized as an application server provides client companies with the processing power and memory they need to run applications in real time. Multicloud application infrastructure can also be optimized to provide a host environment to run specific applications or application components.

3. Database server

Database servers operate as dedicated servers for database services which can be used to run database management software. Companies make use of database servers to run databases as per the required context. Multicloud-based database servers are often preferred for the operation of the backend section of database applications. Multicloud-augmented database servers can be set to operate on the client-server network model to fulfill all data delivery requirements of client systems.

Big corporations use database servers to fulfill their large-scale data processing requirements. By implementing client-server architecture, companies can process data in real time and meet the needs of their end users more efficiently. Multicloud database servers are also a viable option for file storage, processing, and retrieval operations.

4. Redundancy and backup server

Redundancy is the strongest advantage offered by multicloud infrastructure. Companies leverage multicloud for failover and recovery purposes. Redundancy servers are often commissioned at all tiers, including SLB, database, and application. Companies commonly use this â€˜redundant 3-tier architecture’ to secure their production ecosystems.

5. Horizontal auto scaling

Multicloud infrastructure comes with a horizontal auto scaling feature that gives organizations the ability to expand or limit their cloud resources as required. SLB or a similar mechanism is used to assign cloud resources on any one or multiple cloud servers as required by the client company. With horizontal auto scaling, companies need not worry about running out of cloud processing power or storage space, regardless of whether a vendor can process their request at a specific time.

Also Read: Top 10 Cloud Data Protection Companies in 2021

Choosing the right multicloud provider

It is important to choose the right solution to ensure long-term organizational success for companies adopting multicloud infrastructure. Enterprises should consider the following factors before making a decision.

Offers minimal latency

As remote work and the online consumption of goods and services become the norm, companies strive to set up their service centers as geographically close to cloud provider facilities as possible. Data can only travel so fast, especially on a global scale. Customers may end up switching to a competitor’s service due to a delay that may be only a few seconds long. Keeping company resources as close as possible to cloud service provider facilities ensures minimal latency and maximum customer satisfaction.

Sometimes, regulatory requirements make localizing data center operations necessary. However, not all data center providers in any given region operate with the same efficiency. Choosing the right data center partner and the correct location can significantly improve latency, productivity, and efficiency levels while ensuring regulatory compliance.

Choosing a vendor that offers low latency with all public cloud providers used by a company helps ensure a consistent level of performance and throughput. The right data center provider can mean the difference between an acceptable level of performance and latency of cloud services and a level that is too slow to retain customers. For instance, a provider may offer sub-1ms round-trip latency levels for leading cloud platforms in a specific region. In contrast, another provider in the same region will provide services that reach latency levels of over 2ms.

An example of the importance of geography is streaming services. Providers of streaming services manage to provide latency-free video streaming for customers despite having to manage large collections of videos. How is this possible? Simply through the power of multicloud infrastructure that is located optimally from a geographic perspective.Â

A streaming company leverages multicloud-augmented datacenters that are located around the world and back each other up. Not only does this ensure optimal redundancy, but customers who are streaming from a local data center experience an overall faster and better viewing experience.

Provides maximum connectivity

Before choosing a multicloud service provider, it is crucial to ensure that the vendor can establish a secure connection to all the cloud providers used by the client corporation. Ideally, the service provider should ensure a low-latency connection with high throughput. Ensuring maximum connectivity to the multicloud infrastructure, as well as adequate support in case this connectivity is compromised, can mean the difference between continuity and a crippling shutdown in case of a natural disaster or human error.

Offers simultaneous access

The multicloud service being adopted needs to allow the client company to freely access all its data stored with all its cloud providers simultaneously. Without balanced, simultaneous access, the company does not have access to a â€˜true’ multicloud. Instead, its cloud service consumption is hampered, as not all of its data on all its public clouds is accessible at any given time.

Simultaneous access to the same sets of data from more than one cloud provider allows enterprises to enjoy robust redundancy and perfect competition in real time among different service providers. Multicloud services that use file protocols and systems supporting file locking provide client companies with this functionality. CIFS and NFS systems help multicloud infrastructure provide enterprise-class multi-storage solutions.

Provides an endpoint consumption model

When opting for a multicloud service, the client organization also needs to look for a provider offering an endpoint consumption model that is flexible. Discuss with stakeholders and decide whether the company would prefer to consume storage from a single IP space across all its cloud providers or a unique IP space for every different cloud provider.Â

A provider that offers the flexibility to choose an IP space to download data, allows enterprises to comply with any IP schema standards and requirements. With the right multicloud provider, organizations need not compromise on their ability to use data from one cloud platform while still retaining the flexibility to consume data from other platforms as required.

Having the ability to consume data from across numerous cloud platforms can revolutionize the consumption of cloud services for industries. Companies with access to a multicloud ecosystem can shift from one cloud platform to another and even use more than one cloud simultaneously. This allows client companies to take complete advantage of cost savings and cloud innovations without worrying about data portability.

Also Read: Top 10 Hybrid Cloud Solution Companies in 2021

Top 5 Best Practices to Manage Enterprise Multicloud Infrastructure in 2021

By following the practices mentioned below, enterprises can ensure successful implementation of their long-term multicloud strategy. These five best practices must be adhered to during the planning, implementation, and management of an organization’s multicloud environment.

Best Practices to Manage Enterprise Multicloud Infrastructure in 2021

1. Mapping workloads

The correct mapping of workloads is critical for the creation of a solid multicloud strategy. By mapping workloads efficiently, companies can ensure that the proper cloud services and infrastructure components are provisioned to the business teams and processes that need them the most.Â

Correct mapping also enables the IT department to effectively define SLAs based on data privacy requirements, availability and uptime needs, latency levels, and the need for factors such as rapid scalability, batch processing, real-time streaming, and heavy-duty computation.

While there is a certain level of overlap in multicloud and hybrid cloud, the concepts are distinct. To make a long-term, sustainable multicloud strategy, companies must consider numerous IT delivery models, including public cloud, private cloud, hosting services, and hyperconverged infrastructure.

2. Streamlining vendor management

Managing a large variety of technology vendors is a prime requirement of multicloud. The client company needs to deal with co-location services, SaaS applications, cloud infrastructure, mobile apps, QA/testing teams, application development companies, NOCs, SOCs, and a variety of managed service providers.Â

If vendor management is not streamlined, the company’s multicloud environment might end up disjointed and compartmentalized, resulting in higher business risks and lower levels of control. Centralization of IT governance is a critical step toward streamlining multicloud operations.Â

Enterprises must choose a multicloud management platform that allows IT teams to provision and deprovision cloud services, orchestrate services, monitor traffic, auto scale, and track performance parameters such as availability and latency.Â

While cloud-augmented applications and cloud-based services can be easily governed using dedicated management platforms, the multicloud ecosystem of a company should aim to eventually bring co-located infrastructure, on-premise systems, and other aspects of cloud IT under a centralized management platform.

3. Creating a rugged integration framework

As remote work continues to hold an ever-expanding presence across industries, traditional IT ecosystems are moving toward adopting dynamic multicloud environments. To boost adoption and usability, companies are adopting robust change management initiatives in 2021.Â

IT departments across organizations are giving preference to meeting customer expectations through fast-changing multicloud adoption. Integration can be a complicated undertaking for a multicloud environment, mainly due to the number of integration points between on-premise infrastructure and information storage with third-party cloud-powered services and applications.Â

Integration becomes complicated when it has to be done on multiple clouds. However, many custom integration tools and APIs exist to make the job easier.

4. Centralizing security policies

Suppose an organization creates a multi-vendor, multi-geography IT infrastructure and service level relationship without thinking things through. In that case, non-standard SLAs end up becoming the norm, and providing a predictable, consistent, and agreeable set of business services to stakeholders becomes extremely challenging. An ideal multicloud roadmap needs to ensure the implementation of a single, benchmarked, and consistent set of SLAs for every resource, regardless of whether it is situated on-premise or on the cloud. Effective vendor consolidation also helps in the proper implementation of standardized SLAs across the enterprise.

In a multicloud environment, data security and privacy automatically become a key area of concern due to the high number of diverse IT resources at play. As such, securing the enterprise perimeter, including applications, users, data sources, and endpoints, becomes complicated. To help minimize risks and strengthen the enterprise’s cybersecurity posture, IT decision-makers must standardize and centralize security policies across the company and consider partnering with a managed security service provider (MSSP) to effectively integrate the security environment of the business.

5. Implementing disaster recovery

When an enterprise implements a strategy for disaster recovery in a multicloud environment, it must address three distinct obstacles.

Migration: Disaster recovery can be especially challenging for data that is in the process of migration from within on-premise workloads and existing systems to a multicloud ecosystem. This period of uncertainty needs meticulous planning at all levels to ensure optimum business continuity and network uptime to prevent data from being lost in transit.

Multicloud: Even in 2021, when multicloud is rapidly gaining prominence, disaster recovery measures are set up for traditional on-premise or single-cloud systems. Expanding disaster recovery measures for multicloud environments is a complex task at more than one level because of numerous dynamic parameters. These include nature of the workload, scale, geographical coverage, and data type; deployment models such as IaaS and SaaS; infrastructure services such as private cloud, public cloud, and hosting; and cloud service vendors such as AWS and Azure.

Evolving environments: Multicloud environments are known for being adaptable and scalable, and the rest of the company’s infrastructure needs to adapt at an equal pace. Fast-evolving IT requirements can be streamlined through the implementation of a continuous delivery and integration approach.

Also Read: Top 10 Cloud Security Challenges 2021 Needs to Address

In conclusion

Through strong process automation and integration measures, as well as the appropriate use of cloud management solutions, multicloud infrastructure can generate large volumes of data around availability, performance, resource utilization, downtime, traffic patterns, usage correlations, and other trends. This rapid and high-volume generation of information allows management teams to move beyond regular network monitoring and gather deep insights to boost organizational, departmental, and team performance.

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