Choosing an end-to end multi-cloud provider

Craig Stewart, managing director at Altron Digital Business

While cost savings often drive initial cloud adoption, businesses are increasingly recognising more strategic advantages such as enhanced staff productivity, improved operational resilience, and greater business agility, which are proving to be the most compelling benefits of multi-cloud environments.

Understanding the multi-cloud concept

A multi-cloud strategy involves leveraging services from more than one vendor, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This approach allows organisations to avoid dependency on a single cloud provider, enhance flexibility, and optimise performance across different environments. This approach, including using a partner like Altron Digital Business to manage the estate, assists businesses in focusing on their core strategic objectives.

Key benefits of multi-cloud for South African businesses

Enhanced reliability and uptime

By distributing workloads across multiple cloud platforms, businesses can mitigate the risk of service outages. If one provider experiences downtime, applications and services can seamlessly switch to another provider, ensuring continued operation and minimising disruptions.

Improved performance and latency

Multi-cloud environments enable organisations to select the most suitable cloud services for different applications based on their specific needs. For instance, a company might use one provider for high-performance computing and another for cost-effective storage solutions. This strategic allocation can enhance performance and reduce latency, which is crucial for businesses operating in a region with varying network speeds and infrastructure capabilities.

Cost optimisation

Utilising multiple cloud providers through a single partner allows businesses to take advantage of competitive pricing and special offers from different vendors. Organisations can achieve significant savings by optimising workloads and choosing the most cost-effective services. Additionally, a multi-cloud strategy helps prevent vendor lock-in, giving businesses the flexibility to negotiate better terms and adapt to changing financial conditions through a trusted local partner.

Increased flexibility and scalability

A multi-cloud approach gives businesses greater flexibility to scale their IT resources up or down based on demand. This elasticity is particularly beneficial for South African companies facing fluctuating workloads or seasonal spikes. By leveraging the strengths of various cloud providers, organisations can quickly adjust their resources without being constrained by the limitations of a single provider.

Enhanced security and compliance

Different cloud providers offer varied security features and compliance certifications. By adopting a multi-cloud strategy, businesses can leverage the best security practices and compliance measures from each provider, creating a more robust security posture. This approach is particularly advantageous in South Africa, where data protection and regulatory compliance are increasingly stringent.

Disaster recovery and backup

Multi-cloud environments enhance disaster recovery capabilities by enabling data and application replication across different cloud platforms. In the event of a disaster or data loss, businesses can quickly restore operations using backups from alternative cloud providers, reducing recovery times and minimising data loss.

Implementing a multi-cloud strategy

Altron Digital Business supports customers with reviewing their current estate through assessment advisory services as part of transitioning to a multi-cloud environment through careful planning and execution. This is achieved by assessing the current IT infrastructure, identifying workloads suitable for the cloud, and selecting the right cloud providers based on business requirements.

Sometimes, businesses don’t move to the cloud because they believe they must migrate all applications quickly. In reality, migrating to the cloud is not an all-or-nothing choice. Typically, customers will test and experiment, then migrate workloads over time. Through multiple case studies, we advise enterprises through hybrid solutions, using some on-premises workloads connected to cloud services and the advantages of having those environments managed on your behalf.

Altron Digital Business recommends businesses include the following key considerations:

• Integration and interoperability: Ensuring that the different cloud services can integrate seamlessly with each other and with existing on-premises systems.

• Cost management: Implement tools and practices for monitoring and optimising cloud spending to avoid unexpected costs.

• Security and compliance: Establish robust security policies and ensure compliance with local regulations and industry standards.

• Management and governance: Utilise cloud management platforms to maintain visibility and control over the multi-cloud environment.

Conclusion

The multi-cloud landscape in South Africa presents a wealth of opportunities for businesses looking to enhance their IT infrastructure. Allowing Altron Digital Business to work closely with you, we support not only with identifying and moving of server workloads and management into the cloud but also have a wealth of data and AI services that encapsulate the bulk of business strategies and objectives into the next year. Let us assist you with improved reliability, performance, cost optimisation, flexibility, security, backup solutions, and disaster recovery.

As the digital economy continues to grow, embracing a multi-cloud strategy will be a key driver of success for businesses aiming to stay competitive and agile in a rapidly changing market.