Hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments are gaining relevance as companies strive to solve their new needs without wasting their investments in existing digital platforms and technology solutions. The biggest advantage of these environments is that they offer possibilities for flexibility, scalability and adaptability that ultimately result in better results.
Companies around the world are trying to adapt to new business needs through digital and data-driven transformation. Companies are integrating new technologies that become part of their business strategy to increase their productivity, their expansion and to better serve their customers.
In recent years, there has been an increasingly pronounced trend towards investment in cloud environments, technologies and platforms. The cloud environment as well as cloud integration offer advantages that on-premise systems cannot compete with, especially in terms of flexibility and scalability.
This year Microsoft has published a research called 'Hybrid & Multicloud Perceptions Survey' that explores trends and perceptions regarding cloud environments. The survey finds that 86% of respondents plan to increase investment in hybrid or multicloud environments, with 95% of them saying that these technologies have already proven to be critical to the success of their businesses.
The research results confirm that, in 2022, hybrid clouds and multi-cloud environments are an opportunity to solve complex business needs.
A hybrid cloud is a storage computing model that integrates, at a minimum, a private cloud and a public cloud. In a hybrid cloud, public and private clouds interact to provide a flexible set of cloud services.
A multicloud environment includes more than one cloud platform, whether public, private or edge computing. Organizations that require flexible, multi-platform solutions for different purposes turn to multi-cloud environments to meet their needs.
In short, a multicloud environment is composed of at least two cloud platforms and a hybrid cloud of at least one private cloud and one public cloud.
Why are so many companies investing in these environments?
The answer is simple. Hybrid and multi-cloud environments offer more flexibility and agility and organizations know it. Having multiple cloud environments allows companies to deploy complementary clouds for specific purposes to achieve particular business objectives.
For example, we can have a cloud dedicated exclusively to artificial intelligence. This allows companies to optimize their resources and devise new development scenarios and ultimately achieve better results.
Ultimately, hybrid and multicloud clouds contribute to:
On the other hand, these spaces allow companies to develop a standard model for the deployment, implementation and monitoring of their cloud-native applications in any environment.
According to the above-mentioned report, companies that have invested in this type of solutions claim that they have had a direct impact on their results and that they have invested in them for strategic reasons. 83% of companies using multicloud and/or hybrid cloud environments have increased their revenue in the last year, compared to 58% of companies operating neither in hybrid clouds nor in multicloud environments.
For all these reasons, 9 out of 10 managers say they plan to increase investment on multicloud and hybrid clouds within three years.
The importance of diversification
Most companies that invest in cloud environments and start a process of migrating their data, applications and other content to the cloud do so progressively. In other words, migration to the cloud tends to be gradual and spread out over time. The continuity of the process gives companies room to continue their research to make sure that they are investing in the best solutions and working with the best providers.
Companies should not be afraid to diversify their options and explore multiple vendors and cloud services. Quite the contrary. As the migration process progresses, deployment scenarios and business needs evolve. Therefore, companies should invest in the solutions that best suit them at any given time.
After all, the two great advantages of the cloud are flexibility and scalability. Scalability means increasing the size of environments, data consumption or solutions when necessary. Flexibility means not being afraid of change and being able to promote unimpeded transformations when appropriate.