Managing multicloud environments has become increasingly popular as a strategic priority for many organizations seeking flexibility, scalability, and redundancy. But while multicloud strategies offer undeniable advantages, they also bring complexity and several pitfalls to watch out for. Without the right approach, organizations risk losing visibility, driving up costs, and compromising security.
In this article, we’ll explore six of the most common multicloud management pitfalls and how to avoid them. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to optimize your current setup, these best practices will help you manage multicloud environments more efficiently, securely, and cost-effectively.
1. Lack of Visibility Across Cloud Platforms
The Pitfall:
With multiple clouds, getting a complete view of all the resources being used can be difficult, leading to blind spots and potential security risks.
How to Avoid it:
- Standardize monitoring and logging: Use tools that integrate with all your cloud providers to ensure consistent visibility. This can be achieved by using a cloud management platform that integrates with multiple cloud providers or by leveraging native monitoring tools provided by cloud providers.
- Implement a centralized dashboard: A centralized dashboard provides a unified view of all cloud resources, allowing IT teams to identify and resolve issues quickly. This can be achieved using a cloud management platform or a third-party tool that integrates with multiple cloud providers.
- Leverage automation: Automation can help IT teams manage multicloud environments more efficiently and reduce the risk of human error. Automated workflows can be used for tasks such as provisioning resources, configuring security policies, and scaling resources up or down.
- Define clear roles and responsibilities: Clearly define roles and responsibilities for managing multicloud environments, and ensure all stakeholders understand their responsibilities. This can help avoid confusion and ensure issues are quickly identified and resolved.
- Continuously review and optimize: Regularly assess your multicloud strategy and update tools and practices accordingly. This can involve assessing the effectiveness of existing tools and processes and identifying opportunities to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
2. Data Integration Challenges
The Pitfall:
Moving data between different cloud environments can be challenging, and compatibility issues can arise.
How to Avoid it:
- Define integration requirements upfront: Start by identifying your data integration needs and the data types you will work with. Determine how data needs to be integrated across the different cloud platforms and the data sources that need to be integrated.
- Choose the right approach: Based on your specific requirements and the cloud platforms you’re working with, identify the most appropriate data integration approach, such as ETL (Extract, Transform, Load), EAI (Enterprise Application Integration), or API (Application Programming Interface) integration.
- Use cloud-native integration tools: Consider using purpose-built cloud-native integration tools for the specific cloud platforms you’re working with. For example, Azure offers Azure Data Factory, a cloud-based data integration service. Comparably, AWS offers AWS Glue, a fully managed ETL service.
- Establish a centralized data hub: This hub should act as a single source of truth for all data sources and provide a unified view of all data across the different cloud platforms, allowing for easier data integration and management.
- Apply data governance: Implement these best practices to ensure data is appropriately secured and managed across all cloud platforms. This includes controlling access to data, maintaining data quality, and ensuring compliance with regulations such as HIPAA.
- Monitor and optimize data integration: Monitor and optimize your data integration processes to ensure they run smoothly and efficiently. This includes setting up alerts and notifications for data integration issues and regularly reviewing performance metrics to identify areas for optimization.
3. Security Risks in Multicloud Environments
The Pitfall:
Different cloud environments can have different security protocols, and managing security across multiple clouds can be challenging.
How to Avoid it:
- Centralize security management: Implement a centralized security platform to manage security policies across all clouds. This can help enforce consistent security policies across all cloud environments, reducing the risk of misconfigurations or security gaps.
- Implement IAM controls: Use IAM controls to manage access to cloud resources and ensure that users are only granted the minimum necessary privileges to perform their job functions. This can help prevent unauthorized access and reduce the risk of data breaches
- Encrypt sensitive data: Use strong encryption and secure transfer protocols for data at rest and in transit to help prevent data breaches and ensure data privacy.
- Monitor and audit activity: Start real-time logging and alerts to detect anomalies and threats. This can help you identify potential security risks and respond quickly to incidents.
- Conduct regular security reviews: Continuously assess and improve your cloud security posture to identify vulnerabilities and address them before they are exploited.
4. Vendor Lock-In Risks
The Pitfall:
Using multiple clouds can increase the risk of being locked into specific vendors, making it difficult to switch to different providers in the future.
How to Avoid it:
- Adopt open standards: Implementing open standards for cloud services, APIs, and data formats can help avoid being tied to a particular vendor. This allows organizations to move workloads and data more efficiently between clouds and avoid vendor-specific dependencies.
- Use multicloud management tools: Employing a multicloud management platform can provide a single interface for managing multiple clouds and can also help avoid being locked into a single vendor.
- Design for portability: When developing applications or workloads, it’s important to consider portability across multiple clouds. This can include designing applications to be cloud-agnostic or using containerization or serverless technologies to make workloads more portable.
- Negotiate flexible contracts: Opt for negotiating contracts when working with cloud vendors to provide flexibility and avoid long-term commitments. This can include short-term contracts, pay-as-you-go pricing, or other flexible terms that allow organizations to switch vendors more efficiently.
- Explore open-source alternatives: Open-source software can be a good option for avoiding vendor lock-in because it is not tied to a specific vendor and is often portable across different cloud environments. Organizations can also contribute to and benefit from the wider open-source community and avoid paying for proprietary software licenses.
5. Poor Cost Management Across Clouds
The Pitfall:
Managing costs across multiple clouds can be challenging, and optimizing spending can be difficult when resources are spread across numerous providers.
How to Avoid it:
- Plan ahead: To avoid billing surprises, before using multiple clouds, ensure that you understand the services and features you need and how much they will cost.
- Use cost management tools: Many cloud providers offer tools to help you monitor and manage your costs such as cost calculators and budget alerts. Take advantage of these tools to help you prioritize your spending.
- Optimize resource usage: Look for ways to optimize your usage of cloud resources such as using auto-scaling to adjust your capacity based on demand or turning off unused resources.
- Take advantage of discounts: Many cloud providers offer discounts and savings programs, such as reserved or spot instances, to help you save money. Be sure to take advantage of these programs where appropriate.
- Monitor usage continuously: Regularly monitor your usage of cloud resources to identify areas where you might be overspending, and take action to reduce your costs where possible.
- Adopt a cloud management platform: Consider using a cloud management platform that can help you monitor and manage your usage across multiple clouds and provide insights and recommendations for optimizing costs.
6. Lack of In-House Expertise
The Pitfall:
Managing multicloud environments requires specialized skills. Without the right talent, organizations risk inefficiency, errors, and security gaps.
How to Avoid it:
- Train existing staff: Organizations can train their existing employees on the technologies and tools required for mult-cloud management. This can include training on cloud platforms, cloud security, or cloud governance.
- Hire cloud experts: Ensure new employees have experience in managing multicloud environments, particularly cloud architects, cloud engineers, and cloud security experts.
- Use cloud management tools: Cloud management tools can provide a unified view of multiple cloud environments and help automate management tasks, while reducing the need for specialized expertise in each cloud environment.
- Create a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE): A CCoE is a team of experts who provide guidance and support for cloud adoption and management. This team can help ensure that the organization has the expertise to manage a range of cloud environments.
- Partner with a trusted provider: Sometimes, it’s worth it to seek help rather than do it alone. Partner with AIS Network, a managed services provider with multicloud management expertise. We can fill in the knowledge gaps and provide additional support for managing multiple clouds.
Get the Most from Your Multicloud Strategy
Managing multicloud environments can be complex, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By proactively addressing these six pitfalls, your organization can improve visibility, enhance security, reduce costs, and avoid vendor lock-in.
AISN brings years of experience supporting public and private sector organizations with secure, efficient, and scalable multi-cloud management solutions. Whether you’re building a multicloud strategy from scratch or optimizing an existing setup, AISN can help.
Let’s talk about how we can help you maximize the value of your multicloud environment. Contact us today.