What Is a Multicloud Strategy?

What Is a Multicloud? 

Multicloud is when an organization adopts two of the same types of cloud architectures from different vendors. This can be two private clouds or two public clouds.  

An organization might choose to adopt a multicloud as opposed to a singular cloud—either public or private—from one vendor because it can provide greater flexibility, security, and effectiveness.  

Learn more about multicloud.  

What is a Multicloud Strategy?  

A multicloud strategy relates to the process of implementing a multicloud within an organization.  

Whether you are slowly modernizing applications across your organization or doing an entire overhaul of your IT tech stack and infrastructure, you’ll need a tentative roadmap to provide structure along the way.  

With multicloud, you are working to adopt two clouds from two vendors. In this case, things can get messy without the proper guidance.  

Multicloud vs Hybrid-Cloud Strategies 

Public Cloud + Public Cloud 

e.g.: Private Cloud + Public Cloud 

Multicloud Environment Benefits 

Opting for a multicloud environment over a singular private or public cloud can bring about a handful of benefits, including:  

• Cost effectiveness 
• Avoiding vendor lock-in 
• Optimizing existing cloud efforts 

Cost Effective 

Some cloud offerings are pricey on their own. If the cloud vendor charges per block of data, you’ll need to continuously buy new blocks of data as you max out old and existing ones. For an enterprise organization that is continuously growing, costs can quickly grow out of hand.  

Partnering your public or private cloud with Seagate Lyve Cloud eliminates API charges and command fees while allowing you to store more data at a low cost per month.  

Avoid Vendor Lock-In 

Using a mix of vendors to achieve a custom cloud environment allows you to maintain flexibility with your vendors, specifically when it comes to negotiations.  

Relying exclusively on one cloud vendor can potentially lead to vendor lock-in, which places you in a position where you are forced to comply with changing price and agreement standards set by your vendor—regardless of whether these new standards work for your operation.  

Optimize Existing Cloud Efforts 

A large benefit of a multicloud environment is improving the existing backup, disaster recovery, or storage efforts of one vendor by adding the services of another.  

For example, Veeam delivers enterprise-standard backup and recovery solutions. When partnered with Seagate Lyve Cloud, users can experience significant cost savings, greater flexibility and scalability, as well as Seagate’s added encryption and international security compliance standards for enhanced security.  

Cherry-Pick the Best Cloud Services for You 

When choosing multiple clouds to work with, you’re able to select clouds that offer different things based on what your enterprise needs.  

Seagate Lyve Cloud is compatible with a portfolio of cloud partners, allowing you to choose vendors that offer comprehensive solutions across disaster recovery, backup, video surveillance, big data, and more. When paired with Seagate Lyve Cloud, other services are enhanced as a result of Lyve’s S3 API, scalability, and added encryption.  

Multicloud Challenges 

Good things always come at a cost. With multicloud, there are some things you need to be aware of when managing more than one cloud environment.  

Security Management 

When managing two clouds, you need to be sure that data security best practices are being implemented to ensure you are not leaving your enterprise vulnerable.  

When working with an S3 API, leverage features such as object lock, policies, and permissions to ensure your most important data is fully protected. Having set owners of particular sets of data will deliver added security to your multicloud. Be sure to assign roles within a greater business continuity or disaster recovery plan.  

Cloud and IT Management 

If a multicloud environment isn’t properly implemented or consistently maintained, you will open your operations up to security threats. Additionally, inconsistent management can lead to business continuity disruptions, data privacy compliance concerns, and added unnecessary costs.  

Adapting to a Changing Environment 

As enterprises become increasingly dependent on the cloud, more vital applications and software will be built as cloud native. Therefore, it’s important for enterprises to maintain their multicloud environments so they can accommodate a growing suite of modernized applications.  

What to Consider When Choosing a Multicloud Solution  

Data Needs

Spend time identifying your business needs. For example, are you looking to store specific blocks of data or to back up an entire IT architecture in the event of a disaster?  

Setting objectives will guide the vendor shopping process. Keep in mind that, with multicloud, you are pairing more than one cloud. Therefore, you don’t need both products to have scalable capabilities. You can partner an existing cloud with something like Seagate Lyve Cloud, which can easily scale to store large amounts of data as you grow for a low cost.   

Cost vs. Benefit 

Enterprises already have so much data to hold and secure. If your operation is growing, you’re going to need to constantly increase storage capacity.  

This can undoubtedly become costly. When shopping for vendors, understand what list of benefits you’re getting and if they’re on par with the cost.  

Partner Two Parts of a Perfect Whole 

The beauty of a multicloud environment is that you can benefit from more than one cloud provider. Therefore, you don’t need to find one solution that does it all. You can partner two together, each with their own benefits.  

Seagate Lyve Cloud is compatible with a suite of partners to elevate user friendliness, cost, flexibility, and scalability.