Why you need a multi-cloud management tool

Improved IT performance, reduced costs of data storage and overall increases in productivity are all benefits of digital transformation.

Hence, organizations are embarking on journeys of digital transformation with cloud solutions, by entrusting their data and applications to not only a single cloud service provider, but to multiple cloud service providers by adopting a multi-cloud approach.

Adopting a multi-cloud environment is the best of both worlds, as organizations gain all the benefits of cloud migration with greater flexibility, cost savings across different providers, and the ability to select the services that suit them best, while avoiding vendor lock-in by being too heavily dependent on any one provider.

However, this creates the new challenge of managing multi-cloud deployments.

A public cloud refers to a cloud service provided by a vendor to multiple customers.

A multi-cloud approach requires one customer to use more than one public cloud from different vendors.

Meanwhile, a multi-cloud approach is different from a hybrid cloud approach, which consists of using one or multiple public clouds together with an organization's own data center, which may be on-premises, or other IT infrastructure operating in its corporate network such as a private cloud.

In adopting a multi-cloud strategy, the task of multi-cloud management then becomes essential. Multi-cloud management is the process of tracking, securing and optimizing a multi-cloud deployment, which is made even more complicated with the individual features, APIs, SLAs and challenges of each cloud vendor. For multi-cloud management to succeed, different clouds must be linked together and their security ensured at the same time.

A multi-cloud management tool is a unified platform to monitor, secure and optimize all cross-cloud deployments, namely workloads and applications.

The goal of a multi-cloud management tool is to consolidate the usage of cloud solutions from multiple providers into a single place, hence simplifying their management.

The multi-cloud approach provides greater scalability, flexibility and freedom from vendor lock-in, allowing organizations to combine benefits from multiple cloud vendors.

Multi-cloud management offers organizations increased support and control over their multi-cloud environments, allowing organizations to enjoy all the benefits of being on the cloud while bringing additional advantages such as:

1. Reduced strain on IT teams

Multi-cloud management tools centralize monitoring, security features and control of multiple clouds onto one platform. With a single glance at the relevant data all in one place, IT teams are quicker and more efficient at assessing and completing their cloud management tasks across multiple clouds.

2. Better security

Multiple clouds used by an organization increases the attack surface which threat actors can exploit. Concurrently, the difficulty of enforcing reliable and effective security policies increases.

Multi-cloud management tools provide increased security monitoring, policy enforcement and automation, which makes it easier for organizations to protect their essential data, detect and address weaknesses before they can be exploited and rapidly tackle any emerging threats.

3. Enhanced cost management

Cost reduction is a large motivator and one of the main reasons why organizations undergo cloud migration. However, it is easy to lose track of cloud spending when using multiple cloud vendors. Resources which are underused or not used at all can increase costs without delivering value.

Multi-cloud management tools track and report all cloud expenses, providing real-time data analysis to ensure optimal ROI for the organization. Using a multi-cloud management tool, businesses can also compare the prices of cloud services from different vendors to find the ideal rates that fulfill their unique needs.

4. Complete visibility

With multiple cloud environments deployed at the same time, it becomes trickier for an organization to get a complete, real-time picture of workloads and results across all engaged cloud vendors.

Multi-cloud management tools are able to consolidate all the information in a single point, allowing organizations to enjoy complete, real-time visibility of their multi-cloud environment.

The multi-cloud management tool which is ideal for your business needs should have these features:

• Compatibility: The tool should support and integrate with all the cloud platforms, systems and third-party applications you currently use.

• Scalability: The multi-cloud management tool you select should be able to scale up together with the growth of your organization, supporting greater and increasing cloud resource usage.

• No vendor lock-in: The tool should not lock you into using only specific vendors and should be flexible in switching providers.

• Cost management: The tool should offer tracking and billing features which help you manage your costs across cloud environments. Such features include anomaly detection and cost allocation across multi-cloud environments.

• User interface: The tool should come with an intuitive interface that is easily navigated, reducing the time needed to learn how to use it. Dashboards with data visualizations for quick understanding are also a great plus, simplifying the tracking and management of your multi-cloud resources.

• Reliable customer support: A tool which comes with a reliable and readily available customer support team can provide timely help which reduces downtime and speeds up issue resolution.

Understand your multi-cloud usage and cost at a glance with Hi Cloud Compass Platform, the multi-cloud management tool which combines real-time tracking and billing controls with an interactive dashboard. Get the most out of your multi-cloud strategy with seamless multi-cloud management.

Contact us to unlock greater cost savings and cloud efficiency today.