What is Multicloud?
Multicloud is a cloud strategy that combines services from different third-party cloud providers. Organizations can use the infrastructure, tools, services, and software available on each cloud vendor to their best advantage. For example, your applications may use database services from one cloud while using load balancers and content delivery networks from another cloud.
Multicloud in an enterprise means different teams run applications in the cloud environment of their choice. Some teams may deploy their applications on cloud instances from one provider, while others use cloud services from a different provider. A common management layer is used for integration, allowing applications running in different clouds to communicate and exchange data.
What is the difference between multicloud and hybrid cloud?
Many organizations have their own private cloud resources in on-prem data centers. However, purchasing and maintaining private cloud infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming. It is also inflexible, making it difficult for organizations to scale quickly without significant additional investment. Hence, organizations prefer a hybrid cloud approach—moving workloads between private and public cloud services as needed.
A multicloud environment integrates multiple public cloud services from third-party cloud providers like AWS. A hybrid cloud strategy integrates an organization's own internal infrastructure with public cloud computing services.
Multicloud management tools are necessary to orchestrate the public cloud's varying technologies, rules, and resources. Hybrid cloud management can be done using services from a single cloud provider. For example, AWS has several services that work seamlessly across public and private cloud environments.
What are the use cases of multicloud?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has provided world-leading cloud technologies since 2006. As the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud, AWS has services to meet every requirement. Millions of customers, from growing startups to enterprises and government agencies, use AWS cloud services to innovate faster while lowering costs. All cloud computing capabilities can be met within the AWS cloud.
Having said that, some organizations prefer a multicloud strategy for the following reasons.
Existing technology
Organizations may already have applications built with technology/code specific to another cloud provider. They continue using that infrastructure for cost efficiency while transitioning newer projects to the AWS cloud.
Vendor lock-ins
AWS requires no lock-in contracts and provides complete flexibility for customers to choose their cloud service. All costs are determined by usage. However, organizations may have vendor lock-in contracts with other providers for specific infrastructure for a given period, limiting complete switching over to the AWS cloud.
Existing skillset
In large enterprises with diverse human resources, some teams may have more engineers with skills and experience related to a specific cloud. A multicloud strategy allows organizations to use multiple clouds based on the strengths and preferences of individual teams.
However, cloud engineers from any cloud background can quickly transition to AWS cloud using an AI-based developer assistant tool called Amazon Q Developer. Amazon Q Developer helps engineers configure and set up their AWS cloud in minutes. Developers can chat with it using natural language prompts to get the best results.
Mergers and Acquisitions
During mergers and acquisitions, organizations often inherit diverse cloud infrastructures. The acquiring company may primarily use AWS, while the acquired company may rely on another cloud provider. This situation naturally creates a multicloud environment. While consolidation is often desirable, immediate migration may not always be feasible or cost-effective. Organizations can leverage a multicloud strategy to maintain business continuity, gradually integrate systems, and optimize resources across both cloud environments. This approach allows for a smoother transition and helps maximize the value of existing cloud investments.
IT management
Shadow IT refers to projects where employees use unsanctioned apps or multiple cloud services from different providers without permission. Approving a range of cloud providers allows organizations to curb shadow IT and allow employees to experiment till they find a best-fit solution.
What are the key practices in multicloud management?
Consider the following when implementing multicloud architecture.
Centralized database
Moving sensitive data between multiple cloud environments requires robust security, governance, and access control mechanisms. Building data pipelines across different cloud providers may not always be practical. One option is to store data in an open-source database and use it across multiple clouds. That way, you can set up security and compliance rules in a single place.
For example, Amazon RDS for MySQL or Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL allows you to set up the open-source database on the AWS cloud. You get unlimited infrastructure resources, availability, and performance using familiar cross-compatible data technologies. Any apps running in other public cloud providers can access the data without limiting performance.
Centralized monitoring
Multicloud infrastructure may be set up across different user accounts, making it difficult to gain insights into the behavior, performance, and health of multicloud deployments. You should use an observability service like Amazon CloudWatch to visualize your entire application and infrastructure stack, monitor key metrics and logs, and create alarms to raise alerts.
Standardized orchestration
Different cloud service providers have their own tools and workflows. Standard practices and procedures across multiple cloud platforms reduce effort duplication. Implementing standard naming conventions, configuration rules, and logging and auditing brings consistency to your multi-cloud infrastructure. This allows for effective troubleshooting and smooth connectivity across multiple cloud providers.
Containerization
Cloud containers are software code packages that contain an application’s code, libraries, and other dependencies to run in the cloud. Every single cloud provider has their own container infrastructure and technology. However, AWS container solutions can run anywhere — in the AWS cloud, on-prem data centers, and across multiple platforms without requiring modification. You can use the same familiar technology across multiple public clouds and prioritize your business needs over deployment complications.
What are the challenges with a multicloud setup?
A multicloud approach creates the following challenges.
Management complexity
Operating across multiple cloud providers can result in a fragmented environment. Each vendor offers different tools, dashboards, APIs, and workflows. Without a consistent infrastructure, IT teams struggle to integrate services smoothly and end up working in silos. Fragmentation also limits visibility and complicates workload optimization and issue resolution.
Over time, the lack of standardization across platforms leads to inefficiencies and operational bottlenecks. Organizations end up with reduced agility and innovation capabilities.
Security
Each cloud provider has its own set of security tools, interfaces, and access control mechanisms. This makes it difficult to maintain centralized oversight. The increased number of endpoints and data transfer points also broadens the attack surface, making it harder to implement consistent security measures.
Interoperability
APIs, configurations, and authentication methods vary from one provider to another, making it hard to synchronize services. This incompatibility affects tasks like workload migration, data sharing, and system coordination. Teams must manage multiple gateways and credentials, adding another layer of complexity to operations.
Cost management
Each cloud vendor uses its own billing structure, usage metrics, and pricing models. Without consistent visibility into these differences, monitoring costs and accurately forecasting spending becomes difficult. This lack of transparency can result in budget overruns and inefficient resource utilization. Duplicative tools and redundant processes across platforms may further inflate costs.
Data governance
Governing data across multiple clouds is inherently complex. Cloud providers offer different controls for managing data privacy, storage, and compliance. This inconsistency makes it challenging to ensure data integrity and control access uniformly.
Network management
Managing networks across disparate cloud environments introduces latency and connectivity challenges. Applications frequently have to communicate between various cloud platforms, leading to slower response times and degraded performance. Network configuration also becomes more difficult, especially when aligning security policies and routing traffic between platforms.
Skill gaps
Running a multicloud environment requires specialized expertise. Finding talent with experience across multiple providers is harder. Additionally, few have the cloud-agnostic skills needed to manage interoperability, data flow, and compliance in a unified way.
Application complexity
Development teams must ensure that new and existing applications perform reliably across all cloud environments. Implementing DevSecOps practices, maintaining availability, and ensuring high performance across platforms becomes more difficult as the number of services and environments grows. The growing variety of application architectures adds another layer of complexity.
How can AWS support your multicloud strategy?
Multicloud capabilities on AWS simplify and centralize infrastructure management across AWS and other public clouds. You can extend AWS cloud operations experience across hybrid and multicloud environments to deliver a consistent AWS experience wherever needed. AWS data and analytics services allow you to gain insights from your data wherever it’s stored, including other cloud storage services. For example, you can use:
- Amazon Athena lets you query and surface insights from data stored in more than 25 external data sources without copying data, ETL, or pre-processing.
- AWS Config provides continuous assessment, auditing, and change tracking of your AWS resources' configurations, enabling you to evaluate compliance and security posture without manual data collection or custom scripts.
- Amazon OpenSearch Service enables you to easily deploy, operate, and scale OpenSearch clusters for real-time search, log analytics, and data visualization across diverse data sources without managing infrastructure or software.
- AWS Systems Manager allows you to improve visibility and resource control and quickly diagnose and remediate operational issues in a multicloud environment.
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