Cloud Strategy: How Companies Successfully Introduce A Multi-Cloud

It explains the essential steps for implementing a cloud strategy: from administration to security and data protection in an interview. A modern and adaptable cloud infrastructure offers companies a multitude of advantages. Sometimes it serves as a complete replacement for the usual data center, and sometimes it is used as a supplement to on-premises solutions in the form of a private or public cloud. More and more companies are implementing a cloud strategy, but also in a hybrid or multi-cloud architecture. While many IT managers appreciate the advantages of a multi-cloud environment, there is also concern that moving to a multi-cloud will increase administrative overhead and that costs cannot be calculated precisely.

More and more companies are seeing the advantages of a multi-cloud solution. These include increased flexibility and agility as well as improved performance and availability of IT resources. Ultimately, companies can set up a cloud strategy the way they need it and adapt it to changing needs at any time. In the rapidly changing IT world, this is a convincing argument. Often, however, the path to a multi-cloud is also creeping. In cooperation with other companies, further cloud services are added to the existing infrastructure. Cloud solutions that have already been implemented for specific test systems migrate unnoticed into productive operation after success.

It is undoubtedly apparent that implementing a multi-cloud solution also brings challenges. This includes the administration of the structures but also the issue of security. The topic of compliance and liability law and internal and external data protection should not be underestimated because the requirements for data security have increased once again due to the GDPR.

Where data is located and who has access are all questions that users need to clarify at the beginning. Overall, it is essential to implement governance frameworks for these structures and to monitor them continuously. The most important are identity and access management, metering and billing, and cloud tagging.

Identity And Access Management: A Central Element Of Corporate IT

Identity and access management is one of the most central elements of corporate IT and is now standard almost everywhere. Finally, Identity & Access Management (IAM) must be used to manage a large number of accesses required to administer access rights to various resources, systems, and applications. Particular identity and access management tools can manage these easily and centrally. The tools ensure that there are fewer security risks and that resources can be saved. Overall, the IT administration is managed holistically with the help of these tools, and numerous individual decentralized approval and authorization processes are avoided. In this way, IT managers always have an overview.

It is also important to mention that companies naturally also take compliance and liability aspects into account when managing identity and access. After all, as a rule, both your company data and customer data can only be viewed and processed by authorized parties – but this is ultimately a circumstance that should be taken into account when making any adjustments to the cloud strategy. Since the GDPR means that both cloud providers and users are obliged to provide evidence at all times of where personal data is stored and processed, it is advisable to ensure that the cloud provider has all the data, especially with multi-cloud solutions stores held in data centers within the EU. Then you are on the safe side.

A classic server almost always causes the exact costs – even if it is not always fully utilized. In contrast to this, billing models in cloud computing are primarily based on the intensity of use. It is, therefore, imperative to precisely monitor the use of the individual services. Those who rely on multi-cloud models should be careful not to use excessive resources that remain unused most of the time but still cause costs.

In advance, users can simulate and calculate various cloud scenarios and the associated costs based on assumptions. Different metering and billing software tools also support this. Multiple factors are considered in the calculation, such as the number of calls or transactions, the supply and demand for certain services, and times of the day or regions in which a particular workload occurs.

Overall, it makes sense to strategically consider which workloads will be moved to which cloud in advance. Because in addition to certain services, which for technical reasons are better off in a particular cloud than in another, the different cost structures of the various providers play a decisive role. With the right cloud strategy, you are on the safe side here.

Cloud Tagging Enables Control Of Resource Usage

Many choose a multi-cloud environment because it increases the degree of automation and autonomy in administration. This allows employees – within the framework of specifications – to claim resources independently, which creates freedom and flexibility. Cloud tagging is required for this to work in reality. Cloud tagging makes it possible to control the use of resources and assign corresponding accesses within the framework of the selected security concept. By tagging resources with resources, for example, the models of a cloud strategy can be systematically analyzed and monitored.

Cloud tagging can also be used to assign who is responsible for a budget overrun or whether a particular abnormality indicates an IT security incident in a home office network. All of this used to be managed in external tools . A tagging strategy that is implemented across resources is much more elegant and efficient and can be used in parallel across different clouds.

Because that is particularly crucial in the context of a multi-cloud solution: An alert should not only be issued for a specific resource in a specific cloud but should also affect all public and private clouds that the company uses following the rules. The use of various tools for cloud tagging, metering, and billing or identity & access management enables the multi-cloud solution to be efficiently controlled and monitored. All the advantages of a multi-cloud infrastructure for Wear can come. Most challenges can be overcome by implementing a congruent multi-cloud governance model.

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