Multi-Cloud and DevOps: Partnership to Maximize the Success of Your Cloud Journey
Good morning everyone!
I recently had the excellent opportunity to participate as a speaker in the Cloud Track of the TDC INNOVATION 2023 event delivered by The Developer's Conference (https://thedevconf.com/tdc/2023/innovation/). It was an excellent experience, knowledge exchange and contact with outstanding professionals in the area.
The theme of my presentation was how the combination of Multi-Cloud and DevOps can contribute to the success of the Cloud journey in organizations. I would like to share with you the key points of my presentation:
What is Multi-Cloud and what is its market share?
To start the discussion it is important to define what Multi-Cloud is. Simply put, Multi-Cloud is the scenario in which an organization uses services from two or more different cloud service providers, which can be private, public or hybrid cloud.
As we can see in the results of Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report survey below, 87% of the organizations surveyed already operate in Multi-Cloud environments, with 72% of this total corresponding to hybrid Cloud scenarios (combination of Private Cloud/On-premise and Public Cloud), 13% correspond to scenarios of adoption of multiple public Clouds and 2% operate with multiple private/on-premise cloud adoption scenarios.
I understand that this result is adherent to the reality of the market because, not considering for a moment the case of Cloud Native companies already created in the Cloud, most organizations start their journeys integrating public Cloud services to their Private Cloud / On-premise environments in line with their business strategy and digital transformation. This is also caused by the need to integrate Cloud environments from Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) processes.
Benefits and Challenges of Multi-Cloud Adoption in Organizations
The adoption of Multi-Cloud architectures brings benefits and challenges to organizations. From the point of view of benefits we can highlight the following:
Organization's digital transformation acceleration, leveraging Cloud as a transformation catalyst;
Increased resiliency and scalability of applications and data, mitigating the risk of single points of failure and leveraging resources available from multiple providers;
Expansion of compliance with regulations and data sovereignty requirements, depending on industries (Financial Services, Telecommunications, etc.) and geographies of operation;
Cost optimization through the application of the best pricing models for use cases; and
Flexibility in selecting the best Cloud services that meet the requirements of each application or workload.
At the same time, organizations must face several challenges arising from this scenario:
Availability of talents trained in Cloud, where as we know there is a large gap to be solved;
Elimination of silos in the teams' workflow (Business, Product Management, Development, Operations, Security, etc.) within the organization itself;
Non-standardized management of Multi-Cloud environments, associated with the previous point and of greater complexity in the case of M&A scenarios;
Compliance and security in Multi-Cloud environments, whose complexity can be multiplied depending on the industries and geographies of operation; and
Interoperability between Cloud service providers, which implies the technical interconnection of virtual and on-premise networks to be able to establish communication between Multi-Cloud services.
In the previous scenario the question then arises: How can we help solve the challenges of Multi-Cloud adoption looking to realize its benefits?
The proposition that I present to you here is based on the integration of the values and mindset of the DevOps culture (Collaboration, Automation, Continuous Improvement, Customer-focused Action and End-to-End Vision of the product lifecycle) in the Multi-Cloud strategy, thus implementing the Multi-Cloud and DevOps Partnership in your organizations.
How can we implement the Multi-Cloud and DevOps partnership?
The central point of the implementation of this partnership is the construction and implementation of a common operating model for Multi-Cloud environments supported by a centralized platform team.
The centralized platform team receives different names in the organizations: Center of Excellence, Center of Competence, Team CORE, etc. Regardless of the name is the multidisciplinary group that concentrates the knowledge and experience in the Multi-Cloud solutions architecture in operation in the organization, and has the ability to structure and implement the policies, processes, procedures and tools that should be used by the teams to deliver their results.
Going into more detail about what the implementation of this common model includes, I detail below some best practices that can be considered in this initiative:
Create a centralized repository of infrastructure as code (IaC) and application code, integrated with continuous integration and delivery pipelines;
Centralize the provisioning, configuration and automated management of infrastructure and services across multiple Clouds;
Centralize the management and automation of continuous integration and delivery pipelines of applications in multiple Clouds;
Prepare the organization for adoption of architectures based on Containers seeking portability in Multi-Cloud environments;
Empower IT teams to work in Multi-Cloud environments, preparing and/or updating policies, processes, procedures and training material;
Prioritize the monitoring, traceability, and observability of Multi-Cloud environments through the integration of information from multiple Clouds; and
Provide cost visibility and budget control for IT teams, supported by financial control processes (FinOps) for Multi-Cloud environments
As always, the application of these best practices should be carried out considering the stage and maturity of the Cloud journey in which each organization is located and prioritizing actions that are directly aligned with the effective resolution of the challenges applicable to the organization.
Part of this implementation will require the selection and implementation of tools to support the processes, but it is important that this definition also follows the criteria mentioned above. The implementation of the common model involves the adoption of tools, but it is not limited to just that. We have a very strong component of culture, mindset and attitude of people in this process and so we must put a strong organizational change management process in parallel.
How are Multi-Cloud Architectures being implemented?
In the market we find two Multi-Cloud implementation patterns:
Distributed: Distribution of workloads by leveraging specific capabilities/functionalities of each Cloud; and
Redundant: Running two or more copies of the same application/workload in parallel across multiple Clouds.
We can see application use cases for Multi-Cloud architectures in this other result from Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report survey:
Looking above we can identify examples of use cases in the market:
The first topic (44%), corresponding to the redundant architecture, may be seen in situations where due to regulatory or data sovereignty requirements it was required to have the same application running on two different public cloud providers;
The second topic (42%), also of the redundant architecture, represents the case of leveraging public cloud as a disaster recovery environment of On-premise environment or another public cloud;
The third topic (37%), also of the redundant architecture, may represent the case of a Containerized application running in public Clouds and/or On-premise environments;
The fourth topic (37%), of distributed architecture, may correspond to scenarios aimed at integrating, for example, applications running in a public cloud accessing databases managed in another public cloud or the case of Analytics/AI/ML solutions consuming data managed by multiple public clouds and/or On-premise environments.
Conclusion: How does the Multi-Cloud and DevOps Partnership maximize the success of your Cloud Journey?
The Multi-Cloud and DevOps Partnership will be a key organizational and technology enabler of your Cloud journey:
Organizational because the effective adoption of the best practices mentioned above depends heavily on a cultural and mindset change prioritizing Collaboration, Automation, Continuous Improvement, Customer-Focused Action and End-to-End Vision of the product lifecycle; and
Technological because, also following the previous principles, is required the implementation of Multi-Cloud tools that efficiently support the processes to be implemented.
Finally, I want to highlight that the long-term success of your Cloud journey will also depend on having answers to Key Questions from the beginning:
Why does your organization need to start and/or continue the Cloud Journey?
What is the readiness and engagement of your organization (IT and business teams) to start the Cloud Journey?
What is the strategy and action plan for Cloud adoption that should be followed?
What are the necessary investments and expected benefits throughout your Cloud Journey?
The recommendation is to invest time in crafting your Cloud/Multi-Cloud adoption strategy as a starting point in order to realize the benefits expected by your organization along the journey.
We are available to support you in this process and in the continuity of your Cloud Journey!
Let's meet again in our next post!
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