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Introduction to Cloud Services
Cloud computing offers services like servers, storage, networks, databases, applications for big data processing and analytics over the Internet. The cloud hosted services are available on demand as compared to traditional web hosted services and providers offer pay as you go model which means we pay only for services we use, saving of huge costs from buying and Maintaining servers and other hardware as well as data warehouses and infrastructure to support them which is one of the most lucrative features of cloud computing platform.
In this article we will learn more about multi cloud technology, how it works, its benefits and use cases etc.
Multicloud technology
Multicloud technology evolved as an answer to reduce dependency on a single provider and maximize the use of features offered by multiple cloud vendors. Multicloud involves utilization of two or more cloud computing services from any number of service providers. It could be all private, all public or a combination of private and public.
Computing resources distribution and minimization of downtime and risk of business data loss, increasing computing power, storage availability for business could be some of the key reasons to adopt Multi cloud technology.
Why use Multicloud technology
A multi cloud choice helps organizations to pick up different cloud providers as some are better at certain tasks than its counterpart. Some cloud platforms specialize in large data transfers or having integrated machine learning capabilities.
There are majorly three primary reasons for adoption of multi cloud technology –
- flexibility to choose and avoid vendor lock in,
- prevent outages in case one cloud environment fails still you have compute power and resources to run business,
- regulatory requirements, compliance and other factors also push the need to adopt multi cloud technology.
Advantages of Multi cloud technology
- Flexibility – multi cloud computing systems bring in flexibility. The risk of vendor lock in is reduced to an extent and customers can test different cloud providers products features and capabilities. Multi cloud let organization choose cloud services and variety of services offered by them which best suit business requirements
- Security – risk reduction is an important aspect of multi cloud technology. Hosting on a multi cloud environment reduces the chance of being hacked and loss of data in the event of vulnerabilities inherent with cloud providers.
- Fault tolerance – multi cloud technology makes it possible to have backups and data redundancies as per recovery strategy. Downtime scheduling for maintenance and deployment can be planned without impacting services to end users
- Performance – each cloud provider has a wide presence on the globe. Like AWS (64 + countries), Google cloud (200 + countries) . based on location and workload the best cloud provider can be chosen to lower the delay and speed of operations
- Governance and compliance regulations – large organizations services huge customer based needs to comply with local as well as country or geography specific regulations. Such as GDPR or CCPA , GPX and so on.
Disadvantages of Multi cloud technology
- High volume purchase discounts – public cloud providers offer bulk discounts when services are brought in bulk. But in multi cloud it is unlikely to get discounts as volume purchased will be split between various service providers.
- Training for new / existing employees – existing staff and new joiners required to be trained on multi skills set to work on varied cloud providers
- Effective multi cloud management – efficient cloud management is one of key demands where one has to have knowledge of workload and business requirements to disperse the work among cloud service providers such as a company might use AWS for computing, Google or Azure cloud for email and communication and so on. And this requires expertise in cloud and business domain both.