There’s growing attention on a term called multi-cloud, and learning more about it is important for businesses of all sizes, along with the DNS, DHCP, IPAM definition, which is something that goes along with a multi-cloud environment. 

With that in mind, the following are the major things to know about what’s meant by multi-cloud and how it’s relevant to businesses and organizations. 

The Definition

Multi-cloud is a term used to refer to the use of multiple cloud computing services and storage services within one network architecture. 

There might be distributed cloud assets as well as applications and software across multiple environments. 

What’s common in a multi-cloud environment is to use a combination of public and private clouds. The goal of any multi-cloud architecture is to reduce how dependent the organization is on any one provider. 

There are also scenarios where multi-cloud architecture is all-private or all-public. 

Multi-cloud environments can be a combination of software as a service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service. 

With a multi-cloud strategy, an organization can choose the features that work for their needs from more than one provider. They have flexibility because some cloud environments tend to be better than others for specific things. 

How Is Multi-Cloud Different from Hybrid Cloud?

There’s another term that’s often heard alongside multi-cloud, which is hybrid cloud. A hybrid-cloud environment is different in some ways, although it shares similarities with multi-cloud. 

With a hybrid-cloud environment, there’s a combination of private, on-premises and third-party, and public cloud as well.

Often a business will use a hybrid cloud strategy when they want to meet a certain objective or complete a task. 

It’s certainly possible for a hybrid cloud to be part of a multi-cloud environment. Having one in place doesn’t mean you can’t have the other. How you structure your environment is dependent on your organizational needs. 

Multi-Cloud Security

There’s something to be aware of with multi-cloud as far as security. There is a big challenge in protecting data consistently, which then goes back to the need for DNS, DHCP, and IPAM, which is also known as an integrated DDI solution. An integrated DDI solution simplifies and automates management so that businesses can deal with the growing volumes of IP addresses and core network services. 

Whenever an organization is using a multi-cloud strategy, they require third parties to help with security. 

It’s key when deploying a multi-cloud environment to ensure security is defined and distributed appropriately among those third parties. 

In general, the use of cloud management and automation tools helps provide visibility and oversight among separate resources. 

The Benefits of Multi-Cloud

There are quite a few reasons an organization might use a multi-cloud strategy. One was mentioned above, which is the desire to avoid depending on one single provider since it’s something that has a number of risks. 

When you have a single cloud vendor that you’re dependent on, it can make it difficult to be responsive as an organization. 

Another reason that you might use a multi-cloud strategy is to lower the risk of a local hardware failure, which could disrupt all of your business operations. When you use a multi-cloud strategy, the chances of something massive disrupting operations are much lower. 

Other benefits of multi-cloud environments include:

• When you have the flexibility to choose the solutions that are optimal for your business, then it’s going to help you optimize the return on all of your investments. Also, as your needs change or grow, you can put resources where they need to be, but you’re only paying for what you need the entire time. 
• A multi-cloud environment does require some thought as far as third-party security options, but at the same time, it reduces the risk of what are called distributed denial of service or DDoS attacks. 
• When you’re locked in with one vendor, it’s tough to move away from that vendor even if they’re no longer serving your needs. 
• You’re creating redundancy with a multi-cloud strategy, and again, you’re lowering the likelihood of a single point of failure that could take your whole business offline. 

That doesn’t mean there aren’t a few negatives associated with multi-cloud, but if you’re proactively prepared for them, you can manage them. For example, a lot of organizations say they don’t take advantage fully of their public cloud resources. Also, many organizations think they’re going to save money with this approach, but it actually ends up being more expensive. That tends to come down to the lack of visibility, which can be mitigated with automation.