Multi-Cloud Management’s Challenges

 Nowadays more and more businesses are using cloud technology due to its numerous benefits, such as reduced IT costs, scalability, flexibility with regard to work practices etc. With an increase in the deployment of applications through public as well as private clouds, there is a rise in the demand for cloud management solutions. Multi-cloud management aids in creating a uniform as well as consistent system for managing applications and workflow in the cloud. It serves to organize large volumes of data in order to ensure that a single cloud platform doesn’t get overloaded. Multi-cloud management optimizes various cloud vendors’ services. Moreover, it ensures data security, deployed apps’ performance updates continuously along with unified visibility with regard to all cloud services.

Cloud analysis, self-service capabilities and workflow automation can be easily attained through a multi-cloud management system. Cloud monitoring and analysis enables one to avail the best services that suit one’s requirements. Self-service capabilities do away with the traditional processes associated with IT resource provisioning. Workflow automation eliminates the need for human intervention in building and managing computing instances.

Selecting the most Appropriate Multi-Cloud Management Platform

Certain features need to be taken into account while selecting an appropriate multi-cloud management platform. These include provisioning, monitoring and orchestration of service, service performance, service governance and monitoring analytics. Let us touch upon each of these features. In the context of service provisioning, the chosen multi-cloud management platform should be able to launch as well as allocate cloud services on demand. Moreover, the tool should translate the console’s provisioning request or an API (Application Programming Interface) and consecutively translate it into the cloud-native API of the target cloud that is within the multi-cloud platform in order to ensure the application’s best performance.

A multi-cloud management platform should be capable of evaluating and visualizing applications as well as network-layer performances between private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud services. This should include reporting of occurrences which helps to determine the particular service’s use in the future, its reliability and cost metrics etc. Additionally, it should be able to monitor service performance and subsequently log the resulting data.

Service governance specifies and leverages policies that have to do with the usage and execution of a service/ services. This feature helps to audit the various services of one’s multi-cloud environment. The feature of service orchestration ensures the orchestration of a cloud service to meet the needs of a business process. Moreover, there should be a feature to monitor analytics in order to get a detailed analysis of a cloud’s behaviour.

Before proceeding and discussing the challenges that are involved in the management of a multi-cloud platform, let us digress and touch upon cloud hosting. Cloud hosting uses cloud technology and is a type of web hosting service that is provided by a web hosting company. It is meant to make websites accessible over the Internet and uses cloud servers to store the files of websites and delivers those files to make websites accessible. The best hosting service providers are usually referred to as the “Best Website Hosting Company”, the “Best Windows Hosting Company”, the “Top Cloud Hosting Company” etc.

Challenges Involved in Multi-Cloud Management

The major challenges that are involved in the management of a multi-cloud platform are mentioned below.

• Performance- Running checks periodically on one’s web/ mobile apps with regard to speed and performance becomes challenging in the complex environment of a multi-cloud.

• Compliance- The division of the processes that have to do with planning and approval, into numerous sections within a multi-cloud environment, causes an increase in compliance issues. This can result in shadow IT, security problems etc.

• Data security- Robust security measures need to be in place for multi-cloud environments. The constant data exchange between multiple clouds can increase the risk of threat to data security.

• Costs- Inefficient multi-cloud management can cause one to incur unnecessary expenses. If one has integrated multiple cloud services in one’s application and for some reason is not able to utilize all the services to their full capacity, one will still have to pay for those services that have not been accessed.

• Cloud sprawl- A cloud sprawl is caused by the failure of users to decommission those cloud computing services or instances that have not been utilized. This leads to challenges in resource visibility. Moreover, it affects the overall expenses with regard to the cloud.

• Delays- When such workloads need to be managed which are running on multiple and varied platforms, then there is a requirement to address real-time orchestration and processing. Often there are delays in delivering results on time, due to this.

• Migration- Migrating to a multi-cloud environment can be challenging for most enterprises. Efficient multi-cloud management becomes a priority for organizations when it comes to migrating their work while maintaining their standards and policies in the new multi-cloud set up.

The Best Practices for Managing a Multi-cloud

It is essential to consider the best practices for managing multi-cloud environments. These have to do with mapping one’s architecture based on one’s requirements, integration, consumption, usage of containers, maintaining a secure environment and ensuring that disaster recovery measures are in place.

One should map one’s entire network in order to identify and understand the cloud’s role in one’s overall strategy for system-management. In the context of consumption, each business unit of an enterprise in a multi-cloud environment, uses the services of multiple providers. Moreover, usually these units pay for these services in different ways. Hence, it becomes essential to evaluate each unit’s usage (consumption) first and then allocate the resources accordingly.

It is recommended to use containers in multi-cloud environments. Portability can be improved by packaging applications along with their dependencies. Additionally, it aids in simplifying management and renders it easy to migrate applications to different cloud environments without causing any disturbance in their performance.

It is extremely important to take into account the seamless integration of the various components of a multi-cloud environment. Common standards are needed by developers for the purpose of integrating as well as managing the supplier ecosystem in a multi-cloud, in order to address any problem effectively. This integration has to be in governance, organization, business, processes, tools and information. Another important practice requires maintaining a secure environment, as security related issues have been one of the main challenges for businesses when it comes to adopting a multi-cloud platform. Ensuring secure transmission of sensitive information among the various clouds should be every enterprise’s prime responsibility. Hence, it is important to monitor access to data and ensure that role-based access control is provided to those employees of a company who access the multi-cloud. Continuous as well as adaptive security measures need to be maintained and followed. Last but not the least, it is essential to have a disaster recovery plan in place. Such a plan ensures that there isn’t any data loss if an untoward incident takes place.

Multi-cloud management might be challenging but those challenges can be mitigated to a large extent by following the best practices for managing a multi-cloud platform.

Source:https://www.htshosting.org/knowledge-base/cloud-hosting/72/multi-cloud-management-s-challenges