Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Security: Pick the Right Cloud Strategy

Why move to the Cloud?

Many enterprises have adopted the “cloud-first” approach, but not all have a well-thought-out cloud strategy that elucidates the “why”, “what” and “how” of cloud adoption. There is a need to assess a given organization’s business requirements and expected benefits with cloud adoption. Cloud engineering services can only be availed once there is a clarity as to what the enterprise’ actual cloud requirements are.  

According to Cybercrime Magazine, there will be over 100 zettabytes of data stored in the cloud by the year 2025. With this volume of data on the cloud, it is necessary to adopt a well-informed cloud strategy beforehand- that will help teams in non-standard implementations, and aid in creating mitigative steps that will minimize exposure to risks. While there are many cloud service providers and cloud vendors, the most important question for the enterprises is picking the right cloud strategy.

There are two kinds of cloud strategies viz. multi-cloud and hybrid cloud, which can be picked by an organization. Let’s have look at them.

What is Multi Cloud and Hybrid Cloud?

Multi-cloud & Hybrid-cloud both refer to cloud deployments that integrate more than a single cloud.  In a hybrid cloud model, businesses deploy workloads in a private IT architecture alongside using a unified public cloud and a private cloud. This helps in creating a flexible and cost-optimized IT infrastructure. Hybrid clouds ensure that there is a single computing space where an organization can scale and run workloads up and down on the most appropriate model of cloud. 

Multi-cloud comes into play when there are multiple cloud computing and storage services in a singular network. It relies on the use of more than a single public cloud service provider for computing and storing resources. Any multi-cloud that includes both on-premise infrastructure and a private cloud is considered a hybrid multi-cloud. 

There are pros and cons of each of these cloud models and it is important to understand them so as to ensure that the right cloud strategy is adopted. Let’s understand these pros and cons

Pros & Cons of Multi-cloud and Hybrid-cloud 

Multi-Cloud: Pros

• Reliability: One of the main advantages of a multi-cloud model is that businesses don’t have to put all their information into one vendor. If one cloud goes down, there will still be some functionality available to the users from the other clouds that are deployed. Furthermore, a single public cloud can be used as a backup to another cloud. 
• Decreased Vendor Lock-in: Since systems and storages are spread across multiple vendors in a multi-cloud scenario, enterprises are not compelled to remain associated with a vendor. Enterprises should thoroughly do cloud vendor research before committing so that they ensure that the level of service is adequate. In order to ensure data mobility, it is important for businesses to use cloud computing and data backups to move data from one environment to the next with ease. 
• Cost Savings: When an enterprise does not commit to a single cloud vendor for all of their infrastructure needs, it can pick and choose other affordable choices from other vendors. 

Multi-cloud: Cons

• Management: In a multi-cloud deployment, there are different vendors with dissimilar processes and technology. Moreover, when there is a technology stack with data stored with processes running across multiple clouds, it gets tougher to have full visibility and control. 
• Latency: When multiple cloud vendors have to interact with one another to address user requests, there may arise a situation where there is latency in the information that is transferred. This depends on a number of contributing factors, that include how the clouds are integrated, how far from each other the data centres are geographically located, and how often the given clouds need to interact. 
• Security & Performance: Along with more pieces of hardware and software that are integrated, comes vulnerabilities. It can be difficult to balance workloads across different clouds, especially if the data centres are very far apart, geographically. 

Hybrid-cloud: Pros

• Flexibility & Scalability: In a hybrid-cloud model, the enterprise is enabled to direct its resources to both public and private cloud environments. Companies have a wide range of service models that they can choose from, and so they can adopt the most relevant and efficient risk-free cloud solution. 
• Speed & Mobility: A  faster software performance is witnessed where developers can focus on creating solutions and products. The hybrid-cloud helps enterprises move faster to DevOps, and integrates operations, analytics and teams more efficiently.

Keeping in mind the different pros and cons of hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud, let’s look at what a well-informed cloud strategy can reap your businesses:

 
Why adopt a Cloud Strategy?

A holistic cloud strategy helps to identify the key benefits that are attached to the cloud service adoption that apply to your enterprise. It helps to ascertain which services will be built internally and which services would be delivered by the cloud partner. 

When there is a cloud strategy in place, it becomes easier for an organization to determine how can it provide consistent governance and policy across different service environments. This in turn also helps to have a consistent consumption and management layer. 

In order to understand how to create a comprehensive cloud strategy, there are a few sections that need to be considered in the due process. Let’s have a look at them

What should your Cloud Strategy include?

Below are the minimum requirements to create a cloud strategy that can boost your business efficiency:

• Scope and alignment with larger initiative: First, the scope needs to be set for the cloud strategy. This is important when enterprises have larger goals and transformational aspirations. Identifying the business objectives, gaining support from leadership, increasing organizational collaboration and supporting requests for funding can all be enabled when there is a clear vision.
• Defining the present business context: Businesses should conduct brainstorming sessions and drive SWOT analyses and value chain analyses so that they can capture the direction of business evolution and define their cloud needs based on the strategy. 
• Assessment of existing Architecture: A cloud map’s technical implementation requires taking into account the existing business architecture and measuring the true capabilities of an enterprise. It is important to have a holistic picture of existing concerns, so the enterprise can outline the current IT architecture all the way from application, interfaces and so on. 
• Target and Desired State Analyses: The main objective of this step is to obtain a vision of a cloud-enabled architecture. This is done through use-case modelling analysis and through business value and benefits assessments. With this, the organization can delineate the pros and cons of various vendors and different cloud solutions. 
• Gap Analysis & Risk Assessment: Gap analysis helps in the identification of potential strategic gaps and streamlines IT activities. Any cloud strategy also needs to be built around a risk-free environment. Both the delivery and benefits risks need to be measured meticulously so as to decrease the probability of things going wrong. 

Tailoring the Right Cloud Strategy

Cloud transformation maybe just a natural evolutionary step in the journey of any business. Yet, there needs to be a clear vision as to why a cloud strategy is being adopted for any given enterprise. It is necessary to adjust and expand a cloud strategy depending on various factors like what is available to what can be improved upon in terms of both technology and streamlining workflows. 

It is of vital importance to always keep the business objectives and priorities in mind while adjusting and extending one’s cloud strategy. Before partnering with a cloud service provider, it is crucial to establish that the cloud adoption priorities are in par with the existing business objectives. The key point to remember is that choosing a cloud provider and a strategy requires long-term thinking. Analysing the current state and capabilities and building a plan for development are integral parts of choosing the best cloud strategy for your business.