There are various cloud computing solutions available that you can use to meet your business needs.
The most popular are multi-cloud computing, hybrid cloud computing, and distributed cloud.
When deciding on which solution to implement in your infrastructure, you need to know how they work and the benefits and limitations of each. In this article, we will help you understand the critical information necessary to choose right cloud computing service for your Organization.
Multi-cloud Computing
Multi-cloud computing uses two or more cloud services from different service providers to host their cloud software, assets, apps, etc. It uses multiple cloud computing and storage services in a single network architecture.
Multi-cloud helps businesses to minimize data loss and downtime, buy reducing dependency on any single cloud environment. Because there will be always backup in case one ecosystem goes down.
Advantages of Multi-cloud Computing
- When incorporating multiple clouds into a company’s IT strategy, administrators are able to line up their business requirements with the best cloud-hosting providers for each individual task
- Multi cloud is a perfect solution not only for storage but also for scalability as it allows businesses to scale their storage up or down based on an ongoing demand.
- Since cloud providers are responsible for the security of their own infrastructures, they can ensure that your organization has all the capabilities necessary for protecting your data as well.
- Multi cloud interconnection allows you to create a high-speed, low-latency infrastructure while reducing the cost of integrating clouds with your existing IT system.
- Risk management is another great perk that comes with adopting a multi cloud strategy. If one vendor happens to have an infrastructure meltdown or an attack, a multi cloud user can quickly switch to another cloud service provider or back up to a private cloud.
Disadvantages of Multi-cloud computing
- Wider the range of cloud services an enterprise uses, the more complex it gets to manage. Failure to manage the system adequately can increase the costs of using such a system and could affect business agility.
- A multi-cloud environment can be far more difficult to secure than a single cloud. You will have to take into account many aspects, including, encryption keys, identity and access controls, resource policies, secrets management, SSL/TLS encryption.
- Maintaining a multi-cloud environment can be challenging, especially if you don’t have the luxury of seasoned IT specialists who have knowledge across different cloud platforms. Different platforms have different interfaces, and managing them can cause headaches.
- A final issue with multi cloud is how to manage redundancy and high availability effectively and efficiently when using more than one provider. In instances where this is not efficiently managed, there can be the potential for financial wastage.
Hybrid Cloud Computing Defined
Hybrid cloud is a solution that combines a private cloud with one or multiple public cloud services. Proprietary software enables the communication between each service.
A hybrid cloud strategy provides businesses with greater flexibility by moving workloads between cloud solutions as resource needs and costs fluctuate.
Hybrid cloud computing services allow organizations to have more control over their data, making it an ideal environment for many companies. This gives businesses the ability to store their data on private cloud servers while also leveraging the resources utilized on their public cloud.
Difference between Hybrid Cloud and Multi-cloud.
Unlike multi-cloud computing solutions, hybrid cloud computing is managed from a single location. This allows administrators to control everything on one platform instead of individually managing each platform on a multi-cloud system.
Having multiple cloud resources creates more risks for security breaches, and having one location to manage with hybrid cloud computing prevents this.
Advantages of hybrid Cloud Computing
- A hybrid cloud option gives organizations the flexibility to support their remote and distributed employees with on-demand access to data that isn’t tied to one central location.
- A hybrid cloud is a great option for companies that want more security and control of their data but need a cost-effective way to scale their operations to meet spikes in demand.
- A hybrid cloud environment gives businesses greater control over their data. As business needs evolve and the demand for IT services fluctuates, organizations can scale their workloads accordingly. It allows you to adjust your cloud settings to respond automatically to changes in demand.
- A hybrid cloud model helps organizations increase their speed to market by optimizing IT performance and providing the agility needed to meet changing business demands.
- A hybrid system also requires less space than a private model. This is beneficial for startups or small companies that can’t afford to invest in a large private data center.
Disadvantages of Hybrid Cloud
- The hybrid cloud infrastructure is as difficult to implement as much as it is to maintain. Because of the complicated nature of the hybrid cloud, building effective, ongoing security is a difficult process.
- Giving maintenance and security to the third-party vendors may have risks of misuse of the hybrid cloud infrastructure contracted by third-party vendors. This puts the organizations at risk in terms of cyberattacks on the primary server, potentially creating the possibility of breaches to systems.
- Cloud environments are complicated and this increases as organizations divide their environment into multiple clouds. This results in more complicated operations for organizations and makes it difficult for them to achieve a clear view of their cloud environment.
- The cost accompanied by maintenance and installation of the hybrid cloud infrastructure is high.
What is Distributed Cloud Computing?
Distributed cloud is a public cloud computing service that lets you run public cloud infrastructure in multiple different locations – not only on your cloud provider’s infrastructure but on-premises, in other cloud providers’ data centers, or in third-party data centers or colocation centers – manage everything from a single control plane as one centralized network.
With packaged hybrid offerings, public cloud services (often including necessary hardware and software) can now be distributed to different physical locations.
This allows operations to go as expected if one or more devices happen to fail. Distributed cloud resolves the operational and management inconsistencies that can occur in hybrid cloud or multi-cloud environments.
Advantages of Distributed Cloud computing
- Among the most important benefits of Cloud computing is cost saving. You are not only saving on infrastructure but teams to supervise and maintain the hardware.
- You stay updated about the latest developments and changes including the auto-update of the software. Software integration also takes place automatically so you don’t have to worry about customizing and integrating applications.
- It lets you deploy the service in a matter of a few clicks with cloud computing. The swiftness of service allows for speedy deployment of resources needed for the entire process.
- Another advantage of cloud computing is that you can recover data quickly and easily which is pretty time-intensive in an on premise setup.
- Reduced network failure risk because the cloud services can reside in local or semi local subnets, allowing them to operate independent from each other.
- Another other inclination for the distributed cloud is reducing latency. Using a nearby data center may be engaging for a group of mobile users hoping to work together on an interactive document, for computer gaming. Overall, the effect of reducing the latency on user impression is however significant.
Disadvantages of Distributed Cloud
- Distributed computing systems are difficult to deploy, maintain and troubleshoot/debug than their centralized counterparts.
- The deployment cost of a distribution is higher than a single system. Increased processing overhead due to additional computation and exchange of information also adds up to the overall cost.
- Data access can be controlled fairly easily in a centralized computing system, but it’s not an easy job to manage security of distributed systems. Not only the network itself has to be secured, users also need to control replicated data across multiple locations.
Conclusion
After gaining a better understanding of multi-cloud computing, hybrid cloud, and distributed cloud computing, deciding which computing system to go with should be easy.
Remember to choose the best solution to resolve your organization’s problems. Do your best in researching each cloud computing system and understanding the pros and cons of each before implementing a new environment for your company.