Everything You Need to Know About a Multicloud Strategy
Author Laura Rodgers
Laura is a Massachusetts-based content writer at Insight. Prior to joining Insight, she was a writer for small businesses and covered IT and SaaS topics. She has had two fictional short stories published.
Contributor Michael Nardone
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You’ve likely heard the buzz about multicloud and its transformative potential. More and more leaders who have a mature cloud are seeking ways to optimize their environment and reduce costs.
But how will you know when it’s time to make an investment and jumpstart a mature multicloud strategy? If you’re experiencing scaling IT complexities, it may be time to join the bandwagon. In 2024, only 2% of organizations were not using multiple clouds.
Expert Michael Nardone, Director of Cloud Solutions and Distinguished Technologist, Insight, says, “The multicloud is the new normal. But there are different levels of sophistication,” Nardone explains. “For example, do I have interoperability and portability of my workloads across clouds? Do I have the platforms that enable me to reach my customers at the point of where I do business?” The value of these questions will depend on your needs.
Not every organization has this level of multicloud maturity. But first thing’s first: Does your digital transformation strategy require a multicloud ecosystem?
Having complex IT requirements may require you to go multicloud, but which signals indicate it’s time to change your cloud approach?
One strong signal to watch out for is lack of agility or hitting your limit on the features your cloud can offer. If you cannot access best-in-class services for your organization due to your cloud constraints, it’s time to boost your organization’s IT agility.
Another signal is vendor lock-in, which ties your organization to a single cloud provider and restricts your ability to adapt to the market and broker best cloud pricing. By embracing a multicloud strategy, you have the freedom to focus on the right technology and best fit for your organization while managing cloud spend most effectively.
Nardone explains, “There are open-source models that you may want access to that are better served within one provider over the next. That aspect of avoiding lock-in and providing agnosticism and flexibility is top of mind.”
If your organization wants to reduce technical debt, adopt AI, optimize cloud provider costs, and improve resilience, it’s time to go multicloud.
Before jumping into multicloud computing or maturing your current multicloud, it’s vital to measure impacts to your long-term strategy. Most organizations get bogged down in decision-making if they don’t have a mature framework. Common questions we hear: What’s the best provider for us? How do I pull these cloud threads together?
If you go in without a multicloud strategy, you can find yourself very quickly in the deep end of the pool.
You may already be in the multicloud without even realizing it due to your data naturally spanning multiple environments. Data has its own gravity; it’s going to pull workloads, applications, and devices toward it. For future-looking organizations, it’s crucial to expect this pull and proactively build data resiliency into their cloud environments.
Nardone highlights that, “As a leader, you’re looking to build reliability into your IT. A multicloud strategy very much complements that. We’ve seen how global events, cybersecurity attacks, even natural disasters can take you offline with a single hyperscale provider. Having that redundancy and resiliency to have your business survive and thrive is a huge benchmark of multicloud maturity.”
Do we have a multicloud framework?
Do we have an analysis and decision posture for which cloud provider pairs with different use cases?
Do we have dispositions in our portfolio?
Do we have goals for how much compute we want to derive from our multicloud strategy?
Do we have the cloud visibility and control that our CISO and security team needs?
Creating resiliency within the multicloud doesn’t mean you need to overhaul your current infrastructure. Whether you’re using AWS, Azure, Google, or another cloud provider, a successful multicloud security strategy is built off the native controls within an individual provider’s platform.
Nardone adds, “We are seeing a new class of tools and capabilities that allow you to go deep within the provider’s technology stack and security stack, but also keep their unique resource requirements with a ubiquitous view.” There’s no need to reinvent the wheel with different cloud providers.
Leaders who need a successful and mature multicloud strategy must start small, design small, and then incubate. Focus on starting on a minimally-viable production and iterate over time.
But how can leaders feasibly do this?
The #1 best practice for developing a multicloud strategy is linking the multicloud spend to business initiatives. With different data standards across public cloud providers, it’s not easy to normalize consumption data across public cloud hyperscalers.
This is where FinOps and AI join the conversation. Both can help optimize costs over time and do more with your multicloud data. Nardone explains, “We’ve seen a huge demand for compute due to AI. When we think about the best AI use cases or the best AI-enabled applications, that’s where multicloud fits itself so well.”
Take this emergency response software company that followed FinOps best practices for creating a multicloud environment. They needed to migrate their SaaS-based applications and data servers out of the on-site data center to AWS on a tight timeline.
The CTO knew they needed a multicloud solution. Instead of diving into multiple clouds right away, he consulted Insight’s experts. They executed a five-phase process to host on AWS, Azure, and on-premises servers.
The results? The successful migration of seven SaaS applications and more than 175 servers ended in a secure and cost-effective multicloud infrastructure. Nardone confirms, “Once you become proficient in multicloud, suddenly you realize you have all these amazing SaaS assets and technology that power your business.”
Complexity of managing multiple cloud providers
Security concerns in a multicloud setup
Governance and integration issues
Cost management concerns
How organizations manage their cloud architecture has changed. It’s no longer one cloud to rule them all.
While many organizations claim they have already gone multicloud, they might not have covered their bases when changing their IT infrastructure. For instance, their multicloud strategy may not cover workload containerization, filling integration security gaps, or choosing providers that don’t overlap in features and services.
Nardone cautions leaders that, “If you try to start a multicloud and adopt three hyperscalers out of the gate, you don’t build the necessary organizational muscle to manage them. You don’t have the processes, decision-making, frameworks, or strategy in place. That’s why we see success when leaders start small, iterate, and create value across multiple providers.”
Leaders realize that pivoting to a mature, thought-out multicloud model has now become a strategic necessity. This is hardly a surprise, as multicloud offers improved risk mitigation, optimized costs, and provider flexibility — but organizations must be prepared.
No matter where you are in your multicloud journey, Insight’s cloud experts can develop flexible and scalable multicloud solutions that work for you.
Start your multicloud journey the right way.Our team is a multicloud powerhouse from strategy to optimization — and we’re ready to help.
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