Skip to main content

multi-cloud strategy


A multi-cloud strategy is the use of two or more cloud computing services. While a multi-cloud deployment can refer to any implementation of multiple software as a service (SaaS) or platform as a service (PaaS) cloud offerings, today, it generally refers to a mix of public infrastructure as a service (IaaS) environments, such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Common uses for multi-cloud computing


Initially, many organizations pursued a multi-cloud strategy because they were uncertain about cloud reliability. Multi-cloud was, and still is, seen as a way to prevent data loss or downtime due to a localized component failure in the cloud. The ability to avoid vendor lock-in was also an early driver of multi-cloud adoption.


While redundancy and vendor lock-in concerns still drive some multi-cloud deployments today, they are also driven largely by enterprises' broader business or technical goals. Those goals can include the use of more price-competitive cloud services or taking advantage of the speed, capacity or features offered by a particular cloud provider in a particular geography.


In addition, some organizations pursue multi-cloud strategies for data sovereignty reasons. Certain laws, regulations and corporate policies require enterprise data to physically reside in certain locations. Multi-cloud computing can help organizations meet those requirements, since they can select from multiple IaaS providers' data center regions or availability zones. This flexibility in where cloud data resides also enables organizations to locate compute resources as close as possible to end users to achieve optimal performance and minimal latency.


A multi-cloud strategy also offers the ability to select different cloud services or features from different providers. This is helpful, since some cloud environments are better suited than others for a particular task.


For example, a certain cloud platform might handle large numbers of requests per unit time, requiring small data transfers on the average, while a different cloud platform might perform better for a smaller numbers of requests per unit time involving large data transfers. Some cloud providers also offer more big data analytics tools or other specialized capabilities, such as machine learning, than their competitors.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ghosting

Ghosting is to cease communications without notification. The use of the word "ghost" as a verb originated in social media in reference to dating, but the term is now used by employers to describe employees and potential employees who suddenly disappear. Typically, ghosting is used to describe: Job candidates who suddenly stop responding to messages. New hires who fail to show up for their first day of work. Employees who do not show up for a shift. Employees who leave work in the middle of the day and never come back. Some analysts blame ghosting on millennial entitlement. The reasoning is that members of the millennial generation have been brought up to feel they are special -- so special, in fact, that they do not need to follow conventional rules of behavior. Other analysts, however, maintain that ghosting behavior stems from changes in the job market and the phenomenon is simply a reflection of the laws of supply and demand in a healthy jo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Data deduplication

Data deduplication -- often called intelligent compression or single-instance storage -- is a process that eliminates redundant copies of data and reduces storage overhead. Data deduplication techniques ensure that only one unique instance of data is retained on storage media, such as disk, flash or tape. Redundant data blocks are replaced with a pointer to the unique data copy. In that way, data deduplication closely aligns with incremental backup, which copies only the data that has changed since the previous backup. For example, a typical email system might contain 100 instances of the same 1 megabyte (MB) file attachment. If the email platform is backed up or archived, all 100 instances are saved, requiring 100 MB of storage space. With data deduplication, only one instance of the attachment is stored; each subsequent instance is referenced back to the one saved copy. In this example, a 100 MB storage demand drops to 1 MB. Target vs. source deduplication Data deduplica...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a computer chip that performs rapid mathematical calculations, primarily for the purpose of rendering images. A GPU may be found integrated with a central processing unit (CPU) on the same circuit, on a graphics card or in the motherboard of a personal computer or server. In the early days of computing, the CPU performed these calculations. As more graphics-intensive applications such as AutoCAD were developed; however, their demands put strain on the CPU and degraded performance. GPUs came about as a way to offload those tasks from CPUs, freeing up their processing power. NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and ARM are some of the major players in the GPU market. GPU vs. CPU A graphics processing unit is able to render images more quickly than a central processing unit because of its parallel processing architecture, which allows it to perform multiple calculations at the same time. A single CPU does not have this capability, although multi...
Post a Comment
Read more