As multi-cloud adoption expands, lessons learned keep coming in. Solution providers are rising to the challenges of enterprises seeking the most cost-effective, reliable and secure way to embrace multi-cloud.
More and more companies are pursuing three key cloud initiatives to help maximize value while minimizing TCO:
- Modernizing infrastructure
- Modernizing operations
- Modernizing applications
“We found that 83% of enterprises are already distributing applications across their own data centers, in one or more public clouds, and edge environments. As a result, roles within IT are also changing, with 90% of individuals in these same companies having roles that now span multiple cloud environments,” said Mark Lohmeyer, SVP and General Manager of the VMware Cloud Infrastructure Business Group, during VMware Explore 2022.
“We’re living now in a much more distributed, multi-cloud world,” Lohmeyer continued. “However, with this distributed environment comes a whole new set of challenges, because we now have these disparate cloud operating models, skillsets, tools and processes, SLAs, and security models.”
In many environments, that can lead to greater risk, longer time-to-value and higher cost.
Responding to Users’ Multi-Cloud Needs
During the keynote focused on cloud infrastructure transformation, Lohmeyer and others described how enterprises’ different multi-cloud journeys were themselves leading to technology innovations. As they transform their infrastructures, many encounter challenges and new requirements that spur the need for new solutions.
All told, Lohmeyer estimated, “This is probably the most innovation since we launched the service.” That extensive innovation includes expanding capabilities across all instances of VMware Cloud in the public cloud, including on Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud and IBM Cloud.
The Evolution of Multi-Cloud Management
With all the new capabilities of multi-cloud solutions, multi-cloud management is undergoing an evolution of its own, especially as enterprises run applications in private data centers, public clouds, all the way out to the edge.
“Enterprises have overarching management needs,” said Purnima Padmanabhan, VMware SVP and General Manager for Cloud Management. Still, they are setting up teams of engineers to integrate products across platforms and clouds to answer seemingly straightforward questions, such as:
- Where should I deploy?
- How do I consistently apply policies?
- How do I balance cost and performance?
- How do I view cost, security and performance across the entire environment?
“When you think about management, it’s an alphabet soup—log management, cost management, catalog, migration, orchestration and network management,” Padmanabhan said during the keynote. “Many different teams, many different tools, and these tools vary on a per-cloud basis.”
“If you want to connect and answer questions across these various disciplines and technologies, you need to have a common language,” she said.
“Companies can now ask, ‘What is the aggregated cost of my application?’ and Cloud Management Platform pulls that information from data sources. ‘What does my application latency look like? Is it securely configured? Is it using cloud resources properly?’” Padmanabhan explained.
All are fundamental questions when managing multiple clouds. Answering them in one place is critical.
IT Architecture of the Future
At the end of the day, as enterprises progress on their multi-cloud journeys and learn what works best, with Cloud Management Platform , they can enjoy “pragmatic modernization” based on common platforms, enterprise-class capabilities and a management model that allows them to add cloud resources that seamlessly scale.
“This is a compelling architecture for where we see the world going,” Lohmeyer concluded.
From: VMware