Multi-Cloud is the New Cloud
Published on : Monday 07-10-2019
Enterprise Architect,
Oracle Corporation
Having worked for two large enterprise software companies such as Microsoft and Oracle, it is very obvious to me that multi-cloud strategy is the next best thing in the cloud. Some of the most common use cases for multi-cloud are building resilient applications, avoiding vendor lock-in and having more edge locations. Many sceptics are out there, but here is why I think this is the right move in the right direction!
The Cloud Journey Phase
For many enterprises, the cloud journey started couple of years ago. These enterprises have migrated a few applications to the cloud, while some remain on premise in a hybrid way. Now, they are at a phase in which they are more comfortable with the cloud. Advancement in cloud technology has helped public cloud become a ‘new normal’ within IT. The next step in the phase is to move more applications to the cloud or even eliminate the traditional data centres.
As these enterprises continue to move more applications to the public cloud, they are starting to realise that they will not get the best of breed services from a single cloud provider. For example, a customer may feel that Microsoft Azure is a platform of choice for .NET applications, SQL Server, Active Directory and other services. On the other hand, they may find that Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is a platform of choice for Oracle Autonomous Database, Exadata Cloud Service, Java, and Oracle Applications such as E-business Suite, PeopleSoft and more. Having a multi-cloud strategy can provide choice of platforms that are not only popular, but proven, and more efficient.
The Common Customer Base
It is very common to find customers who have both Microsoft and Oracle technology stack deployed in their organisation. The variation may depend on the industry or vertical, but as my journey went from Oracle to Microsoft to Dell/VCE back to Oracle, the customer base mostly remained the same!
If an organisation's strategy is to lift most of their applications to the public cloud, "then"? having multi cloud vendor strategy becomes essential. They may not want to redevelop, re-platform (operating system, database, etc), or change licensing and customer support when migrating to the public cloud. All of the changes can take up too much time while your competition sails away!
The Cross-Cloud Collaboration and Portability
The cross-cloud collaboration among cloud providers can simplify the multi-cloud deployments. Partnering companies may provide cross-cloud networking, collaborative support, unified access/management and best of breed services combined to choose among. Recently, Microsoft and Oracle announced partnership, which offers all of these benefits. Customers get the flexibility to deploy their application and information architecture anywhere across these clouds. Cross-cloud partnerships are going to be on the rise as cloud providers such as Oracle, Microsoft, Google and AWS aim for the top spot.
Technologies like Kubernetes are a good fit for the multi-cloud strategy; it provides the portability to deploy your application on almost any cloud that has k8s capability easily. Regardless of the languages and container layers, you can deploy your applications on multiple clouds with minimum changes. This type of deployment is particularly beneficial if you are looking for an application high availability beyond a single cloud provider for the most critical applications.
In summary, let your multi-cloud strategy drive efficiency and cost savings while meeting strategic business needs. If you are now convinced and interested to learn more about Microsoft and Oracle announced partnership, follow the blog @vinaycrao and I co-authored here1. It discusses use cases, walks you through setup, and shows you the multi-cloud applications in action!
Author’s note: The opinions expressed in this article are my own and not of my current or past employers. Some general observations may have been derived from the current and past customer engagements.
Reference
Samir Shah is an adviser to CxOs and top level management on how to align their IT with business strategies. He has over 15 years of experience spanning multiple verticals such as financial, manufacturing, technology and consumer products
