Positioning Your Business in the New Digital Reality

Thomas Krane | August 21, 2018| 1 min. read

Cloud computing continues to evolve in response to growing demand for fully digital workflows. The result is an operational climate in which longstanding cloud models are being replaced by multi-cloud configurations that take the core idea of the hybrid cloud to another level.

A multi-cloud setup is a situation in which organizations rely on a mix of multiple different cloud ecosystems in conjunction with one another, often working to integrate and streamline workflows between clouds as much as possible. It builds on the idea of hybridized IT environments that mix traditional on-premise resources with cloud systems and puts more resources into the cloud, optimizing the specific cloud configuration relative to the workload.

Advantages of multi-cloud configurations

Multi-cloud setups are emerging as key components of digitally transformed businesses because they offer a blend of flexibility and reliability that is difficult to match in a traditional IT or hybrid cloud configuration. Major benefits of a multi-cloud system include:

Improved disaster recovery: With multiple clouds in place, organizations can replicate their cloud setup across multiple vendor data centers. If an availability issue emerges, businesses can automatically failover into the alternative setup, maintaining uptime.
Workload optimization: Different clouds are better at different tasks. Some providers focus on supporting data-rich apps and services, while others may emphasize real-time data delivery, but not be well-suited for supporting a particularly high volume of data. Being able to mix and match clouds lets businesses take a best-of-breed approach to the cloud.
Client-friendly partnerships: Having multiple clouds in place gives businesses more leverage when negotiating service level agreements and protects organizations from vendor lock-in because organizations aren't as reliant on one or two major cloud vendors.

The multi-cloud problem

Multi-cloud environments are emerging as a possibility in light of today's digitally transformed business landscape. IT teams adjusting to today's digital reality are creating flexible, adaptable configurations with deep virtualization. Software-defined systems have penetrated to the point that containerized architectures are abstracting isolated pockets of systems within the virtualization layer. While this creates a great deal of elasticity in the cloud, it also relies on a modernized system architecture, and not every application is designed to operate in such settings.

This roadblock creates new opportunities for software companies that help to bridge the gaps between legacy software and today's multi-cloud environments.

Driving cloud integration

Creating simple solutions to cross-architectural boundaries in various cloud and non-cloud environments is a pressing need, and our portfolio features a few brands disrupting this space:

CloudBolt is all about visibility. Enterprise IT is increasingly finding itself between their users, private data centers, and public clouds and in the role providing an operating environment that looks more and more like a cloud of Clouds. CloudBolt helps Enterprise IT deliver and manage resources across all of these environments in an automated, compliant fashion.
CoreView offers a wide range of software-driven services, but it stands out in the multi-cloud world for its ability to provide deep controls and management for organizations moving between Microsoft Office to Office365.
Veeam focuses on cloud availability solutions, but it recently advanced its services by acquiring N2WS, further extending its backup solutions for heavily virtualized workloads.

Multi-cloud setups are beginning to dominate the IT space, creating new technical and operational challenges for modern, digital organizations. Software companies that offer solutions for advanced multi-cloud management or to bridge the gaps between legacy and contemporary systems can stand out in an increasingly complex market.