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We are all witness to the unabated growth of the cloud, and its increasing complexity. Providers diversify, and many specialised cloud providers emerge on the market occupying niches for demand that are not well served otherwise. Taking this approach further, we look at the different cloud options and how a multi-cloud strategy can help you improve business value.

A brief recap of cloud service models

We differentiate four different service models of relevance:

On-premise (whether deploying a private cloud or traditional IT services and applications) requires you to operate your own data-centre, however big or small, including power, connectivity, staff, facilities, equipment, and whatever else: You own every tangible product, and increasingly the CAPEX in your books - whether you use it at saturation or barely above idle state.

Hybrid cloud means that while some of your IT estate remains in your own data centre, some of its operations is located in the (public) cloud. This raises a few information governance and information & cyber-security questions which are outside of the scope of this article. The cloud provider is chosen according to a set of well-defined requirements (well, we hope that is the case - if not, contact us for help or better yet - sign up for a free workshop). 

(Public) Cloud deployment means that you are implementing a more or less strict 'cloud first' policy of deploying everything in the public cloud - using one cloud provider - unless it is not possible for technical, physical, regulatory or other reasons. In practice, however, hybrid cloud, public cloud, and multi-cloud deployments overlap in the sense that often some IT infrastructure remains on-premise. Yet it is worth differentiating these based on the most prevalent deployment pattern and operation your IT estate is presenting.

Multi-cloud simply means you diversify operating your IT estate across multiple cloud providers based on some sub-sets of your requirements being matched better by one cloud provider than others. For example, cloud providers differ in pricing for their on-demand or reserved instances: Provider A is (much) cheaper for on-demand instances than provider B, but more expensive for long-running, reserved instances. Why not combine both to increase cost efficiency across your entire IT estate? 

Being multi-cloud without realising?

Many organisations are in fact already operating a multi-cloud infrastructure without knowing it: Three of the most popular business functions using external cloud services are:

• Human Resources - payroll, PAYE, HMRC real time information submission;
• Finance - bookkeeping, invoicing, VAT reporting, EC sales lists, etc.;
• Website - often the parts not concerning operating/offering the service or product portfolio, such as the organisation presentation and description.

While this can be described as using multiple cloud providers, it often is not being multi-cloud, let alone having a multi-cloud IT strategy.

The difference is a solid multi-cloud strategy has an overarching scope, in which all internal and external IT resources you use are embedded and guarded by common strategy and policies regarding procurement, information security, cyber-security, service management and operations.