Multi-cloud computing is becoming popular day by day among giant organizations. Multi-cloud is a cloud computing type in which a combination of clouds and more than one cloud is used for an organization’s services and applications. The combination of different clouds, such as two or more public clouds, private clouds, or more, is used in multi-cloud computing. It is getting famous, as many big enterprises are using this approach due to its potentiality, flexibility, and scalability.
But before jumping to the point if the multi-cloud is better or not, allow us to give you a little idea about its advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of Multi-Cloud computing
Here are some advantages of multi-cloud clouding.
Innovation
One of the chief advantages of multi-cloud computing is rapid innovation. The multi-cloud strategy is quick in evolution and innovation at a high pace. After choosing multi-cloud, one will not remain restricted to using all the services of a single vendor or service provider. You can select one service from one vendor and the other from a second one. Although every cloud provider offers a complete set of tools and services, you can choose whom to select according to your will. A multi-cloud strategy allows an organization to pick the best service sets from different providers and incorporate them into their use.
Risk reduction and continuity in business
All leading cloud vendors have their data centers in each geographic region from where they provide services to their clients. In some situations, if any cloud vendor suffers outages, it will affect the business continuity with disruptions. By using multi-cloud computing, you have the option of business recovery and continuity. You can produce the independent copy from another cloud server to use in such cases to maintain continuity. Also, if any provider leaves the business, you have a backup, and there is less risk of your business getting ruined.
Vendor Lock-In
Just relying on one vendor is quite risky for any business and organization. By working with one cloud provider, you will not remain limited by that provider platform. It will be tough to switch to another provider for just one service. Most of the time, cloud providers tend to introduce new services with increased prices, and as a single platform user, you cannot switch with better pricing options. From multi-clouding, you can pick multiple cloud vendors, reducing the chances of vendor lock-in and dependence on a single vendor. You can mix and match services from different vendors with better negotiating positions according to your business needs.
Efficiency and performance
By using multi-cloud computing, you can achieve efficiency, growing your service and application’s user experience. At some geographical locations, one cloud service provider works better than others. In such cases, multi-cloud computing helps a lot. You can choose cloud services close to the users of a particular location. It will enhance the organization’s services and make it more scalable.
Disadvantages of Multi-cloud computing
Let us now check out the disadvantages of multi-cloud computing.
Talent Management and related problems
It is a daunting task to find good cloud specialists, cloud architects, and engineers with enough skill sets and experience in a single cloud provider. Thus, finding people with enough experience and expertise in multiple clouds is a difficult job. For successfully using cloud computing, qualified specialists are necessary with the expertise to develop apps on multiple cloud computing platforms.
Also, creating applications and services with cloud computing vendors and controlling them requires a lot of management work. Different vendors have ways to work, and controlling all of their work from a single unit is tricky. Issues related to management are common in the multi-cloud computing case due to different ways of services by various vendors.
Cost Estimation
Multi-cloud computing is cost-efficient, but managing cost estimation is quite complicated. Since every cloud provider has different pricing for numerous services, you should know the pricing structure. It indicates the organization should manage the finances efficiently for every service from several providers. Apart from this, shifting data between clouds can lead to some additional expenses.
Security Risks
Working with a single cloud provider is more secure than multi-cloud computing. Single cloud provider management is more secure in terms of data security. Storing data on multiple clouds gives space for data breaches making it harder to protect data. Multi-cloud is more prone to attacks and leakage. Also, manage different encryption keys, identity, access controls, and resource policies of various servers in multi-cloud computing. It is recommended to monitor the information resources and rectify inconsistencies or loopholes.
Summing it up
Any business or organization can use multiple cloud computing platforms as it is more optimized, efficient, and cost-effective. However, you should also never ignore the disadvantages. Security and management issues are a deal for any organization. So, it is better to first analyze all the pros and cons of multi-cloud computing according to your needs and then implement it into the work.