The Scourge of Multicloud: How IT Teams are Betrayed by their own Success
As more organizations adopt a multicloud strategy, the chaos and complexity multiply. In this brave new world, IT teams are forced to juggle multiple public cloud providers, creating a dizzying array of potential pitfalls. And yet, this is the very fate that awaits organizations that attempt to manage their own datacentres and cloud infrastructure without a unified approach.
Consider the state of multicloud management: 82% of organizations already use a multicloud strategy, and the average organization uses eight or nine cloud infrastructure environments at any given time. "Organisations want to run in multiple places," says Ian Haynes, EMEA Field CTO at Nutanix. "They want to run in their own datacentres, but also on at least one public cloud, and increasingly more than one public cloud."
But is this flexibility worth the cost? A recent study revealed that 40% of organizations experience severe difficulties in managing their multicloud infrastructure, with many more struggling with the complexity and vendor lock-in. As Danie Thom, a hybrid cloud platform specialist at Red Hat, notes: "Proprietary cloud solutions create vendor lock-in, often limiting businesses to standardised solutions that can result in walled software gardens and dependency on one provider’s suite of products or services."
The Never-Ending Struggle to Keep the Lid on Chaos
As more organizations opt for a multicloud strategy, they find themselves drowning in a sea of complexity. Managing multiple clouds, with different infrastructure, security protocols, and user permissions, is a monumental task. The stakes are high: a single misconfigured cloud infrastructure can lead to costly data breaches, extended downtime, or catastrophic failure.
"This is why we recommend implementing a centralised monitoring and management solution that can provide visibility across the multicloud environment," advises Amritesh Anand, vice-president and MD, Technology Services Group at In2IT Technologies. "You want to be able to leverage where you put your applications and where you put your data to make use of those different strengths."
The Multicloud Conundrum: Love it or Loathe it, IT Teams are Trapped
As IT teams struggle to cope with the consequences of multicloud complexity, they face a daunting choice: sacrifice flexibility and freedom to achieve a semblance of order and control, or risk disaster by leaving the chaos unchecked. Whichever path they choose, the fate of their organization hangs precariously in the balance.
"This is a major undertaking," says Haynes. "Harnessing the diverse functionality available from multiple clouds and integrating those clouds is a major undertaking." And what’s the reward? A promise of improved security, reliability, and flexibility, or a curse of vendor lock-in, complexity, and chaos?
