Oct 03, 2016 – By Brittany Gunter
We sat down with a few of the Faction cloud gurus to learn more about one of the hottest developments in cloud technology…multi-cloud.
Q: Let’s start with a brief overview of the multi-cloud concept.
A: It’s essentially a cloud-to-cloud peering network. It serves as a useful tool for organizations that want to tap into best-of-breed offerings, such as remote storage, across a variety of network footprints. Customers with hybrid or multi-cloud provider platforms can adopt multi-cloud architecture and take full advantage of a cloud’s specific value proposition.
When working with multiple cloud providers, users can also benefit from the best-of-breed features. So it’s like taking the best of all clouds and rolling them into your own customized solution. Faction likes to refer to it as the ability to leverage a single “source of truth” or repository as the reference data source for many cloud services, across multiple service providers.
Q: How did companies that use several different clouds approach this before multi-cloud became a ‘thing’?
A: The typical approach has been to build out your own network to various cloud providers. This can be very complex from a contract and technology management perspective. It is also very capital intensive, as it includes putting together colocation and termination equipment, unless you opt to use Internet as the transport.
Q: What are the top 3 pain points that multi-cloud addresses?
A: 1. Overall costs associated with building out private circuits
2. Complexity of the long-term management of both contracts and technology
3. The inability to quickly adopt new providers/services
Q: What businesses are a perfect fit for Faction’s Multi-cloud and who can’t live without it?
A: Any business with legacy applications, such as commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) or customized services; and service providers that are looking to build a worldwide presence with minimal capital overhead.
Also, service providers that need high-speed connectivity to leverage multiple cloud ecosystems within their customer base. Really any enterprise that needs the agility of DevOps platforms, which are available in hyperscale providers, can benefit from multi-cloud. This is where the majority of the innovation happens, but it is sometimes hard to balance security, compliance and large data movement challenges.
Q: Why & when do customers move to multi-cloud platforms?
A: Multi-cloud starts now with hybrid approaches and will change over time to include more providers and services as the market changes and companies mature their multi-cloud approaches. There is no true multi-cloud, as adoption capabilities will vary by customer, but the reduction in business risk that accompanies the Faction strategy is the same no matter the breadth of customer requirements.
Avoid getting caught in the hyperscale traps. With Faction Multi-cloud as the foundation, you have the flexibility to adopt new services and methodologies as you see fit.
Q: What are some of the biggest cloud-related challenges for IT leadership?
A: A big one is the inability to adapt with cloud market changes, as well as provider lock-in. Once you pick a cloud provider, you are typically stuck with that solution, as the migration to another cloud platform can be complex and time consuming. With Faction though, we have our patented Layer 2 Direct Connect typology that allows companies to rapidly and seamlessly migrate to Faction cloud—saving tons of time and headaches.
So, hopefully you have a better understanding of this dynamic trend in the cloud arena. We will continue this discussion in next week’s blog. Stay tuned next week for part 2!
Make sure to check out Luke Norris talking with RCRWireless about the evolving world of multi-cloud environments here.
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