Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud

It used to be easy: pick your cloud, build out your IT footprint, and get back to business. But the explosion of cloud adoption has also led to an explosion of options for cloud providers, platforms, and deployment options. And that’s just when talking about infrastructure as a service!

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Multicloud isn’t good or bad; it’s inevitable.
Embracing multicloud in your organization is an opportunity to gain control while enabling choice. Although it increases complexity for both IT operations and governance, with the right tools and principles in place you can reduce the IT burden and increase business agility at the same time.

Impact and Result

Understand what multicloud is, what it isn’t, and why you need to accept it in your organization.
Keep your cloud strategy but adapt your approach and tools.
Leverage best practices and principles that will help you keep control of the volatility and complexity that comes with multicloud.

Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud Research & Tools

1. Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud Storyboard – A deck that helps you implement best practices for your multicloud strategy.

Use this research to understand the risks and benefits that come with a multicloud posture.

Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud

The heterogeneous ecosystem is worth it; you just need a cohesive strategy.

Executive summary

Your Challenge	Common Obstacles	Info-Tech’s Approach
It used to be easy: pick your cloud, build out your IT footprint, and get back to business. But the explosion of cloud adoption has also led to an explosion of options for cloud providers, platforms, and deployment. And that’s just when talking about infrastructure as a service! For many businesses, one of the key benefits of the cloud ecosystem is enabling choice for different users, groups, and projects in the organization. But this means embracing multiple cloud platforms. Is it worth it?	The reality is that multicloud is inevitable for most organizations, and if it’s not yet a reality for your IT team, it soon will be. This brings new challenges: How do I decide what platforms and offerings to use where? Is my old cloud strategy obsolete? How do I identify what I want out of multicloud, and what tools and best practices need to be in place to keep control?	By defining your end goals, framing solutions based on the type of visibility and features your multicloud footprint needs to deliver, you can enable choice and improve performance, flexibility, and availability. Understand what multicloud is, what it isn’t, and why you need to accept it in your organization. Keep your cloud strategy but adapt your approach and tools. Leverage best practices and principles that will help you keep control of the volatility and complexity that comes with multicloud.

Your Challenge

Common Obstacles

Info-Tech’s Approach

It used to be easy: pick your cloud, build out your IT footprint, and get back to business. But the explosion of cloud adoption has also led to an explosion of options for cloud providers, platforms, and deployment. And that’s just when talking about infrastructure as a service!

For many businesses, one of the key benefits of the cloud ecosystem is enabling choice for different users, groups, and projects in the organization. But this means embracing multiple cloud platforms. Is it worth it?

The reality is that multicloud is inevitable for most organizations, and if it’s not yet a reality for your IT team, it soon will be. This brings new challenges:

How do I decide what platforms and offerings to use where? Is my old cloud strategy obsolete?
How do I identify what I want out of multicloud, and what tools and best practices need to be in place to keep control?

By defining your end goals, framing solutions based on the type of visibility and features your multicloud footprint needs to deliver, you can enable choice and improve performance, flexibility, and availability.

Understand what multicloud is, what it isn’t, and why you need to accept it in your organization.
Keep your cloud strategy but adapt your approach and tools.
Leverage best practices and principles that will help you keep control of the volatility and complexity that comes with multicloud.

Info-Tech Insight

Embracing multicloud in your organization is an opportunity to gain control while enabling choice. Although it increases complexity for both IT operations and governance, with the right tools and principles in place you can reduce the IT burden and increase business agility at the same time.

Project overview

Multicloud isn’t good or bad; it’s inevitable	The reality is multicloud is usually not a choice. For most organizations, the requirement to integrate with partners, subsidiaries, and parent organizations, as well as the need to access key applications in the software-as-a-service ecosystem, means that going multicloud is a matter of when, not if. The real question most businesses should ask is not whether to go multicloud, but rather how to land in multicloud with intent and use it to their best advantage.
Your workloads will guide the way	One piece of good news is that multicloud doesn’t change the basic principles of a good cloud strategy. In fact, a well-laid-out multicloud approach can make it even easier to put the right workloads in the right place – and then even move them around as needed. This flexibility isn’t entirely free, though. It’s important to know how and when to apply this type of portability and balance its benefits against the cost and complexity that come with it.
Don’t fall in reactively; land on your feet	Despite the risks that come with the increased scale and complexity of multicloud, it is possible to maintain control, realize the benefits, and even use multicloud as a springboard for leveraging cloud benefits in your business. By adopting best practices and forethought in key areas of multicloud risk, you can hit the ground running.

Multicloud isn’t good or bad; it’s inevitable

The reality is multicloud is usually not a choice. For most organizations, the requirement to integrate with partners, subsidiaries, and parent organizations, as well as the need to access key applications in the software-as-a-service ecosystem, means that going multicloud is a matter of when, not if.

The real question most businesses should ask is not whether to go multicloud, but rather how to land in multicloud with intent and use it to their best advantage.

Your workloads will guide the way

One piece of good news is that multicloud doesn’t change the basic principles of a good cloud strategy. In fact, a well-laid-out multicloud approach can make it even easier to put the right workloads in the right place – and then even move them around as needed.

This flexibility isn’t entirely free, though. It’s important to know how and when to apply this type of portability and balance its benefits against the cost and complexity that come with it.

Don’t fall in reactively; land on your feet

Despite the risks that come with the increased scale and complexity of multicloud, it is possible to maintain control, realize the benefits, and even use multicloud as a springboard for leveraging cloud benefits in your business. By adopting best practices and forethought in key areas of multicloud risk, you can hit the ground running.

Aligning the terms

Modern organizations have multiple IT footprints. How do we classify different stances?

01 Hybrid Cloud
Private cloud and public cloud infrastructure managed as one entity

02 Multicloud
Includes multiple distinct public cloud services, or “footprints”

03 Hybrid IT
Putting the right workloads in the right places with an overall management framework

Info-Tech Insight

Hybrid cloud is about applying the same service model across multiple deployment models (most commonly public and private clouds).
Multicloud is about using multiple cloud offerings irrespective of differences in service model or deployment model.

Multicloud

An approach that includes multiple distinct public cloud services (e.g. AWS EC2 but also Salesforce and M365)
Usually defined around a steady state for each workload and footprint
Everything in its right place (with portability for events and disasters)
NOT everything everywhere all at once

Multicloud is inevitable

The SaaS ecosystem has led organizations to encourage business units to exercise the IT choices that are best for them.

The multicloud maturity journey

Move a workload to the cloud
Move more workloads to the same cloud
Move the right workloads to the right clouds
Hybrid cloud & multicloud
Integrate cloud and traditional/ on-premises footprints

Hybrid IT: Aggregate Management, Monitoring, Optimization, Continuous Improvement

Multicloud is about enabling choice while maintaining oversight

The broader your footprint, the harder it becomes to manage risks across each environment.

The image contains a screenshot of a diagram of maintaining oversight with multicloud.

Managing multicloud risks

The risks in multicloud are the same as in traditional cloud but amplified by the differences across footprints and providers in your ecosystem.

Variations across platforms include:
- Rules
- Security
- Mapping corresponding products and services
Training and certifications by platform/provider
Managing cost across footprints
Complexity of integration
Managing compliance across platforms
Loss of standardization due to multicloud fragmentation

Info-Tech Insight

Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Each cloud platform you adopt in your multicloud posture requires training, knowledge, and execution. If you’re already leveraging an ecosystem of cloud providers, leverage the ecosystem of cloud enablers as needed to help you on your way.

Embrace the Inevitability of Multicloud visualization

The heterogeneous ecosystem is worth it; you just need a cohesive strategy.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

Talk to an Analyst

Our analyst calls are focused on helping our members use the research we produce, and our experts will guide you to successful project completion.

Book an Analyst Call on This Topic

You can start as early as tomorrow morning. Our analysts will explain the process during your first call.

Get Advice From a Subject Matter Expert

Each call will focus on explaining the material and helping you to plan your project, interpret and analyze the results of each project step, and set the direction for your next project step.