Multi Cloud Management

Multi-cloud
management:
Necessity or
vendor hype?
In this e-guide In this e-guide:
 Multi-cloud management still Your organization may be using multi-cloud computing to avoid vendor lock-in or for safer
disaster recovery, but there is still a lot of debate around whether or not a multi-cloud
a work in progress for IT management platform is worth the hype, or what it can really accomplish for you.
teams Take a look at this guide to see a few differing opinions on the topic, and find what sort of
multi-cloud management platform, if any, will work best for you.
 User self-service challenges
Read on to compare offerings from vendors such as TotalCloud, Microsoft, VMware, and
mount in multi-cloud
many more.
computing
 The best multi-cloud

strategy is to just ignore the
hype
 Single pane of glass for

multi-cloud management still
elusive
Page 1 of 20
In this e-guide Multi-cloud management still a work
 Multi-cloud management still
in progress for IT teams
a work in progress for IT
Kerry Doyle
teams
Organizations of all sizes rely on cloud services to support new initiatives, stay competitive
 User self-service challenges and capture greater business value. Companies often depend on multiple clouds to meet
constantly evolving business goals and to avoid single-vendor lock-in and dependencies. With
mount in multi-cloud a multi-cloud approach, a business uses a combination of public cloud services from different
computing providers and selects the most appropriate environment for both infrastructure and
applications.
The appeal of public cloud is driven by its affordability, with a broad set of capabilities
strategy is to just ignore the available on a pay-as-you-go basis with global coverage. Also, providers have steadily
improved security and met regulatory requirements that previously prevented critical workload
hype
deployments. IT environments now regularly consist of on-premises infrastructure with an
 Single pane of glass for infrastructure as a service (IaaS) clone, a mix of several public, private and hybrid cloud
deployments and a growing reliance on software as a service.
Organizations choose multi-cloud deployments for a range of reasons. For example, a cloned
elusive IaaS deployment ensures higher availability, more efficient failover, disaster recovery and
reduced risk of crippling distributed denial-of-service attacks. Moreover, the growing data
explosion increasingly requires unique approaches to handling different types of corporate
information. By having more than one service and diversifying cloud deployments, businesses
can more effectively match specific workload requirements to the most appropriate platform
while at the same time gaining leverage for negotiating service-level agreements and
contracts. However, they will also face new multi-cloud management challenges.
Page 2 of 20
In this e-guide Multiple clouds increase complexity
 Multi-cloud management still Tight integration, smooth operation and consistency remain the ideal characteristics of multi-
cloud deployments. However, managing multiple clouds generally translates to additional IT
a work in progress for IT complexity. For example, controlling cloud sprawl can take up valuable IT time and resources
that otherwise could be devoted to more critical operations.
teams
Relieving IT management pressure is especially important for the growing reservoirs of data.
 User self-service challenges A key challenge for IT leaders is to ensure that all corporate information in the cloud is well-
mount in multi-cloud managed and protected. IT staff often have to fulfill corporate governance requirements while
still meeting strict international regulations. High levels of data awareness and management
computing will be even more critical as the EU General Data Protection Regulation comes into play in
 The best multi-cloud 2018.
strategy is to just ignore the Cloud sprawl will limit visibility, which also makes
it difficult to prevent shadow IT. Unsecured cloud A key goal for most
hype deployments create opportunities for data businesses is to ensure
breaches and other serious vulnerabilities. These
 Single pane of glass for that all their diverse
unauthorized deployments can also replicate
multi-cloud management still existing functionality or lead to data and resource cloud services function
duplication, which results in unnecessary uniformly.
elusive spending. Finally, lack of consistency in cloud
APIs presents another IT headache in which
code revisions are required to bridge incompatible APIs associated with individual cloud
architectures.
These limitations underscore the need for simplified operations, greater control and the
increased automation that managed services and multi-cloud management platforms offer.
Page 3 of 20
Multi-cloud management platforms are designed to help IT professionals unify disparate cloud
In this e-guide environments. These platforms also enable teams to more easily execute workloads on the
most compatible platform based on cost, reliability and advanced services. These are critical
 Multi-cloud management still criteria. The faster an organization can deploy cloud resources to meet changing business
a work in progress for IT goals, the more effectively it will maximize efficiency and contain costs.
teams Pros, cons of multi-cloud management platforms

 User self-service challenges A management platform provides organizations with new levels of order and visibility into
mount in multi-cloud multi-cloud environments and governance. A key goal for most businesses is to ensure that
all their diverse cloud services function uniformly. As a flexible, customizable foundation,
computing multi-cloud management platforms offer a self-service environment for requisitioning the most
 The best multi-cloud optimal cloud resources, from processing power to storage capabilities. Through increased
visibility, IT professionals can more effectively track performance, resolve issues and
strategy is to just ignore the accurately predict and control usage costs.
hype While a multi-cloud management approach provides the necessary insight, automation and
control to keep cloud sprawl in check, it represents an emerging market at an early stage of
 Single pane of glass for maturity. That means hurdles remain. For example, large branded platforms such as IBM
multi-cloud management still Cloud Brokerage -- formerly cloudMatrix -- VMware vRealize and Microsoft Operations
Management Suite prioritize the large service providers, often excluding niche providers.
elusive These brand-based multi-cloud management platforms will function more efficiently when
paired with the technologies promoted by that provider.
Additional hurdles include limited cloud API functionality. For example, not all cloud APIs offer
full-service compatibility, which leaves an organization with only subsets of common features
from each provider. In-house management and brokerage tools might also fail to update on a
regular basis to accommodate new services at the speed at which they're introduced. Yet
Page 4 of 20
these major multi-cloud management platforms still offer valuable tools. VMware vRealize
In this e-guide Automation, for instance, is a key component that provides built-in workflows and GUI
controls to automate provisioning and configuration, application delivery and container
 Multi-cloud management still management across multiple clouds. It enables IT teams to go beyond automating server
a work in progress for IT builds, and it extends to firewall rules, storage and backup schedules.
teams Alternatively, third-party tools exist to provide customized monitoring frameworks and add-in
management functionalities that fill monitoring gaps not covered by cloud vendors. These
 User self-service challenges cloud management platforms can handle specific tasks, from enabling cost transparency and
ensuring compliance to increasing resiliency and reducing security risks.
computing Nagios offers a unified cloud management console to monitor CPU cycles and performance,
memory and disk consumption. It is designed to integrate with third-party software and offers
 The best multi-cloud compatibility with a slew of platforms. However, it is time-consuming to set up and can pose
challenges to engineers unfamiliar with Linux or Unix commands.
In contrast, SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor offers a comprehensive set of
hype
monitoring templates with easy configuration. The third-party tool OP5 is closely related to
 Single pane of glass for Nagios, though more streamlined. It makes it easy to add new nodes and servers via their
web-based dashboard. As a competitive open source alternative, Zabbix offers a compact
multi-cloud management still and lightweight profile that scales easily and offers compatibility with a range of OSes.
elusive
Page 5 of 20
In this e-guide

teams

computing

hype

elusive
It's
useful to note that all of these multi-cloud management approaches, whether major branded
platforms or third-party tools, present challenges. Of particular concern are their abilities to
integrate private clouds, manage customized legacy applications or gain granular control of
hybrid environments.
Page 6 of 20
Ultimately, when you consider the complexity of multi-cloud management, the areas of top
In this e-guide concern for many organizations, regardless of the industry, are reining in costs and ensuring
security. With either a comprehensive multi-cloud management platform or individual third-
 Multi-cloud management still party tools, organizations can gain full awareness of cloud spending patterns and
a work in progress for IT automatically scale up or down to achieve the right balance between cost and service
availability.
teams
The same automated approach applies to security implementations, policy controls and
 User self-service challenges governance. Select the right multi-cloud management tool to ensure that your business gains
the most innovative, cost-effective services from multi-cloud deployments.
▼
computing
Next Article
hype

elusive
Page 7 of 20
In this e-guide User self-service challenges mount
in multi-cloud computing
Paul Korzeniowski, Freelance Writer
teams
User self-service is a big potential benefit of cloud computing. With it, deluged IT departments
 User self-service challenges can offload mundane resource allocation tasks to users, affording themselves more time to
work on strategic projects. But many organizations do not offer, or are wary of, this feature for
mount in multi-cloud a variety of reasons, and the growing use of multi-cloud computing could complicate things
computing even more.
 The best multi-cloud A number of factors deter enterprises from a user self-service provisioning model. First, to get
there, organizations must alter their development and deployment processes. Both the IT
strategy is to just ignore the department and business units need to understand how to manage cloud services -- a change
that often requires training and more dialogue between the two groups.
hype
Sprawl is also a concern. IT teams worry that business departments will spin up more
 Single pane of glass for workloads than they need. Historically, enterprises haven't had tools to control this kind of
multi-cloud management still workload sprawl, but fortunately, vendors ranging from Cisco Systems to RightScale have
developed tools that provide more cloud transparency and management features.
elusive
The self-service integration challenge
Despite these tools, challenges around user self-service persist, and the growth of multi-cloud
computing amplifies those challenges.
Page 8 of 20
Today, 63% of corporations use at least two cloud vendors, according to Lauren E. Nelson,
In this e-guide principal analyst at Forrester Research. Many cloud services have also been designed to run
autonomously with virtually no common integration points. This is because vendors focus
 Multi-cloud management still more on improving their own capabilities than they do on integrating those capabilities with a
a work in progress for IT competitor.
teams Consequently, when a business uses multiple

cloud platforms, IT teams might need to support Each cloud vendor's
 User self-service challenges multiple user self-service portals, and integrating portal formats data,
them is difficult.
mount in multi-cloud presents information to
computing "Each cloud vendor's portal formats data, users and supports
presents information to users and supports development tools in a
 The best multi-cloud development tools in a different way," said Jay
Lyman, principal analyst at 451 Research. different way.
hype
A self-service portal, whether hosted by a cloud Principal analyst, 451
vendor or an enterprise, is an infrastructure Research
 Single pane of glass for software application. Unlike a word processing
app, for example, a portal does nothing by itself; Jay Lyman
multi-cloud management still you don't just buy it, download it and run it.
elusive Enterprises need to tie the portal into their
existing application infrastructure, which is complex, given that those infrastructures often
have thousands or tens of thousands of APIs. Basically, to deploy a self-service portal, a
company needs to take on a massive amount of software integration work.
Because of these challenges, integrating self-service portals for multi-cloud is at a nascent

stage of development.
Page 9 of 20
Vendors have signed a few joint development agreements, such as the one between Amazon
In this e-guide Web Services and VMware, that could help with these efforts, but integration work remains.
 Multi-cloud management still That scenario is not expected to change anytime soon. No standards group has shown
interest in taking on the work, and while open source has helped spur the development of
common interfaces, there hasn't been significant movement in this area yet.
teams
Looking ahead
A few enterprises have developed some common dashboards, and there are some tools,
such as RightScale, that can help with these multi-cloud self-service challenges. But, in many
computing cases, cloud portals still largely run autonomously.
 The best multi-cloud And that user self-service work might stay on IT team's back burner for now.
strategy is to just ignore the "Many businesses are taking a step back and trying to determine what level of integration they
need with multi-cloud solutions," Nelson said. While integrated multi-cloud self-service offers
hype some benefits for IT, other needs, such as multi-cloud cost containment, are now higher on
 Single pane of glass for the corporate wish list.
multi-cloud management still Eventually, vendors and IT teams will put other building blocks in place to ease cloud self-
service integration. For instance, according to Larry Carvalho, research manager at IDC, a
elusive fully containerized development environment would break down barriers and ease integration.
▼ Next Article
Page 10 of 20
In this e-guide The best multi-cloud strategy is to
just ignore the hype
Nick Martin, Executive Editor
teams
Like so many marketing terms before it, multi-cloud is the latest IT buzzword that means
 User self-service challenges everything and nothing all at once. The rush to pin the multi-cloud label on everything and the
dire warnings that you need a multi-cloud strategy only serve to confuse IT pros and
mount in multi-cloud obfuscate today's real, technical cloud challenges.
computing Industry analysts and vendors are eager to claim that multi-cloud is not only the future -- it's
 The best multi-cloud here now. Yet ask them to define multi-cloud, and you're likely to get competing or even
evasive answers. Many analyst firms, including IDC, help feed this confusion by defining
strategy is to just ignore the multi-cloud broadly as the use of any cloud-based services, including SaaS. One vendor even
inexplicably slapped the multi-cloud sticker on its existing hyper-converged infrastructure
hype
boxes. While it's true that today's businesses use a variety of cloud services, let's not roll back
 Single pane of glass for the clock to when the cloud was a mysterious concept.
multi-cloud management still There's no reason to confuse SaaS with IaaS or imply that a single term with such a broad
definition is useful. Under this definition, an organization with a dusty old server closet could
elusive qualify for the multi-cloud label if it used both Office 365 and Box. That organization would
face vastly different challenges and provide a much different level of IT service than a
company that allows developers to spin up new instances across multiple IaaS providers.
Saying organizations need a multi-cloud strategy to help manage SaaS subscriptions is like
saying organizations need a multi-software strategy. The SaaS delivery model actually
simplifies or eliminates many technical challenges for developers and IT professionals. It does
Page 11 of 20
present new administrative challenges and requires admins to look closer at user access,
In this e-guide governance and billing. But these challenges aren't unique to a cloud delivery model. Used in
this overly broad fashion, multi-cloud is nothing more than a checkbox for business leaders
 Multi-cloud management still and a term serious IT professionals should ignore.
teams
Remember when everyone
needed a private cloud?
 User self-service challenges There's a problem with
It seemed like only yesterday these same
mount in multi-cloud blindly adopting the
vendors and analysts were touting the advantage
computing of private clouds. C-level executives heard the multi-cloud vocabulary.
hype and told their IT teams to build one without
 The best multi-cloud understanding that a true private cloud has a
strategy is to just ignore the specific definition -- one that emphasizes self-service portals, automated provisioning and
chargeback. As a result, many IT admins just adopted the lexicon and began calling their
hype existing virtualized data centers "private clouds." The business-savvy among them used the
opportunity to justify a new virtualization management tool purchase. I poked fun at this trend
 Single pane of glass for in 2013, joking that, "we won't tell if you need to start calling your infrastructure a private cloud
multi-cloud management still to get your boss off your back." Today's equivalent would be using your company's Office 365
migration to justify a new IaaS cloud management tool in the name of multi-cloud strategy.
elusive You're welcome.
Multi-cloud is a dangerous word

There's a problem with blindly adopting the multi-cloud vocabulary. It was easy to gloss over
the technical gap between vanilla virtualization and private cloud, and it didn't matter much to
executives so long as your infrastructure met business needs. Multi-cloud is a more
Page 12 of 20
dangerous buzzword because organizations still face difficult technical challenges to
In this e-guide managing IaaS clouds.
 Multi-cloud management still Large-scale IaaS provider outages are rare, but how will you explain to the CEO that, while it's
true Office 365 runs on Azure, your multi-cloud strategy doesn't include a contingency plan for
an AWS EC2 outage? How will you articulate that egress fees make IaaS migrations painfully
teams expensive after proclaiming to be a multi-cloud whiz? Broad definitions absent of technical
discussion invite communication breakdowns that can hurt businesses and your career.
mount in multi-cloud What should a multi-cloud strategy look like?
computing The challenges associated with managing multiple IaaS clouds continue to grow. If you
thought keeping track of multiple SaaS bills was tough, try deciphering invoices from different
 The best multi-cloud IaaS providers. The problem with vendor lock-in also worsens as IaaS providers continue to
strategy is to just ignore the expand their proprietary services and developer tools. Many IT admins are discovering they're
locked in to multiple clouds as a result of pet projects, silos or shadow IT.
hype
Unfortunately, many initiatives that aimed to set open standards and provide cross-cloud
 Single pane of glass for compatibility, such as OpenStack and Eucalyptus, have lost steam. But there's still room for
hope. Amazon's reluctant acceptance of Kubernetes solidifies a common container
orchestration platform across several IaaS providers. And many function-as-a-service
elusive platforms offer unbiased access to compute resources. Organizations don't just need multiple
clouds or software delivered as a service. They need tools, standards or platforms that aim to
abstract away the underlying infrastructure differences and allow multiple clouds to work like
one. Whether we'll ever see wholesale commoditization of cloud infrastructure resources is an
open question, but don't let today's multi-cloud hype distract from this goal.
Next Article
Page 13 of 20
In this e-guide Single pane of glass for multi-cloud
management still elusive
Alan Earls, Contributor
teams
Cloud computing may solve many problems associated with traditional on-premises
 User self-service challenges infrastructure, but visibility and management remain a challenge. Third-party cloud products
have been around almost since the inception of the public cloud to help address these issues.
mount in multi-cloud However, according to analysts, their most ambitious goals haven't always resonated with
computing buyers. Now, new and established vendors are back with some fresh approaches to help
organizations tackle complex multi-cloud management challenges.
One example is TotalCloud, a new vendor that offers a 'gamified' interface to visualize and
strategy is to just ignore the control AWS cloud resources. An immersive tool takes advantage of the natural capabilities of
the human mind, which are oriented toward visual and aural information, said CEO and
hype
founder, Pradeep Kumar.
 Single pane of glass for TotalCloud delivers a Minecraft-like real-time user experience that uses "behavioral-AI
multi-cloud management still concepts used in real-time strategy games such as Warcraft and StarCraft," Kumar said.
Users get a viewable context of their cloud infrastructure and then maneuver the behavior of
elusive affected cloud resources, in the right context, using quick decision-making insights from one
single immersive console.
"The action could be for the purpose of optimization, fixing a security issue, checking on
compliance, looking for cost-saving opportunities, performing cloud operations, or making a
disaster recovery," Kumar said. And, he explained, this new approach is a step away from the
Page 14 of 20
traditional siloed approach of managing and optimizing resources, and toward the single-
In this e-guide pane-of-glass goal.
 Multi-cloud management still Single-pane management still out of reach

That chimerical goal has been the focus of vendors for years, said Forrester analyst Lauren E.
teams Nelson. "The vision set forth in 2010 was a single pane of glass, but it has been a waiting
game," she said. The tools that tried to deliver on that vision may have been over-ambitious or
 User self-service challenges not focused enough on actual problems, she said. As enterprise cloud use expanded, so too
mount in multi-cloud did the list of functions a single-pane-of-glass tool must offer -- including an interface layer to
ensure portability across cloud vendors.
computing
Today, the market is more focused on day-to-day management, such as how to lower cloud
 The best multi-cloud bills, how to optimize use and how to mitigate performance problems. "Vendors are breaking
strategy is to just ignore the into specific functionality in hopes of increasing engagement with the client and eventually
selling more," Nelson said.
hype
In short, "A lot of people realize they can't wait
 Single pane of glass for any longer for the single pane," she said, so The vision set forth in
spending now is mostly on single capabilities. 2010 was a single pane
The challenge with a single pane of glass is a of glass, but it has been
elusive
loss of fidelity, said Owen Rogers, a research a waiting game.
director at 451 Research. He compares the
single-pane-of-glass goal to the ubiquitous Forrester analyst
universal remote control for home entertainment
systems. Lauren E. Nelson
"Having just one control for all your devices is a
Page 15 of 20
lot more convenient than multiple controls," he said. "But each device has its intricacies that
In this e-guide can't be captured by a single control."
 Multi-cloud management still As a result, you still have to keep your old remote controls for things such as channel tuning
or configuration. In other words, the single remote can do the majority of things, but it'll never
replace everything because that would make the single control too complex and reduce its
teams advantage of simplicity.
 User self-service challenges "The same issue lives with the single cloud pane of glass -- they can do the common things
that all providers offer, but they're not so good at the differentiated features between
mount in multi-cloud providers," Rogers said.
computing
Cloud tools refocus on DevOps problems
Torsten Volk, a managing research director at Enterprise Management Associates, said the
strategy is to just ignore the real problem is that the vendors that tried to deliver sophisticated multi-cloud management
hype "didn't pay attention to the DevOps guys who actually had the pain." Over time, DevOps
teams came to rely on the management capabilities of cloud providers, which also offered the
 Single pane of glass for ability to deliver crucial cost information.
multi-cloud management still Volk said he has seen other vendors, including Morpheus Data and YotaScale, try a new
approach to address the frustrations of cloud management. In many cases, these vendors are
elusive
not trying to build a better multi-cloud management tool; they are building a different mouse
trap.
"The key cloud DevOps problems are all related to compliance, security, cost, speed and
quality," Volk said. Third-party vendors are looking to help solve these DevOps problems by
adding robust automation.
Page 16 of 20
YotaScale, which Volk said is "more like TotalCloud in its approach," harnesses AI to deliver
In this e-guide cloud performance management.
 Multi-cloud management still Several companies offer tools that play a role in making cloud more manageable, Nelson
said.
Cloudify offers an open source orchestration platform that aims to manage and automate
teams
lifecycle processes in the cloud. It is built on Topology and Orchestration Specification for
 User self-service challenges Cloud Applications (TOSCA), which is a language based on OASIS. The RightScale Cloud
Management platform provides organizations access to a portfolio of public, private and
mount in multi-cloud hybrid cloud services while maintaining enterprise control. The company's Optima product is a
computing cloud cost management and optimization tool. Turbonomic focuses more on workload
automation for hybrid cloud environments. New Relic and AppDynamics both focus on
 The best multi-cloud application monitoring and management.
strategy is to just ignore the Other companies include the following:

hype  ParkMyCloud, a SaaS tool that enables users to automatically schedule on and off
times for their idle cloud resources;
 Single pane of glass for  FittedCloud, a platform to help match provisioning and utilization;
 GorillaStack, which helps parse AWS reports to support better utilization;
 Skeddly, which provides scheduled automation services for AWS;
elusive  DivvyCloud, which automates optimization and compliance;
 Densify, which provides SaaS-based machine learning cloud optimization;
 OpsRamp, a cloud-based management hub;
 io, a cost-focused instance manager for AWS;
 Spotinst, a framework for provisioning and utilization management; and
 HashiCorp, which offers a range of tools to manage both physical and cloud-based
VMs.
Page 17 of 20
In this e-guide

teams

computing

hype

elusive
Page 18 of 20
But the independent vendors aren't alone, and cloud providers will continue to expand their
In this e-guide management capabilities. "If AWS had fantastic monitoring and others [did], too, would that be
enough?" Nelson said. "Will people pay for cross-cloud views or brokerage insights? So far,
 Multi-cloud management still the answer is 'no.'"
a work in progress for IT Furthermore, service players like Accenture and value-added cloud players like Rackspace
also have a role, she said, because they are building strong management capabilities into
teams their own offerings. Sometimes those capabilities come with an extra charge. "Again, the
question is: 'If these things are included in the service price, would you really pay for a
 User self-service challenges separate tool?'" she said.
computing
Multi-cloud management will remain a challenge
 The best multi-cloud Regardless of who attacks the problem, there is much yet to be done in the realm of cloud
management, said Dan Conde, a senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.
"Many people will choose a single cloud vendor for its particular strengths," he said. But,
hype regardless of how much management functionality individual cloud providers offer, "multi-
cloud will be a problem."
Primary cloud management challenges include provisioning, configuring after initial
provisioning, monitoring for cost and performance and security. "Doing things to be cross-
elusive cloud may force you to be looking at or using the lowest common denominator; that would be
bad if you can't use each cloud's special capabilities," Conde said.
And that points to another challenge that goes beyond simply ensuring smooth operations.
"I think the next big area is cloud optimization, automatically ensuring that users are paying
the lowest price for their resources while meeting requirements," Rogers said. These can be
categorized into two types: waste managers that continually tidy-up unused resources and
Page 19 of 20
broker-dealers that balance workloads across different pricing models to achieve the lowest
In this e-guide cost.
 Multi-cloud management still And what of the elusive single pane of glass? "It is an interesting approach if you can get
people to adopt it," Volk said.
▼
teams
Next Article
Multi-cloud management still a work in progress for IT teams
User self-service challenges mount in multi-cloud computing
computing
The best multi-cloud strategy is to just ignore the hype
Single pane of glass for multi-cloud management still elusive
hype

elusive
Page 20 of 20

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Multi-cloud

 The best multi-cloud

 Single pane of glass for

teams Pros, cons of multi-cloud management platforms