Podcast: How customers use multi-cloud and mitigate key challenges

In this podcast, we talk to co-founder and CEO of Vawlt, Ricardo Mendes, about multi-cloud operations, and ask what exactly are customers doing with it, the key challenges they face – in security in particular – and how they can overcome them.

We also talk about use of multiple cloud in disaster recovery scenarios, the challenges of multiple sets of billing and security configurations.

Key to the solutions he suggests is to get as much of your multi-cloud operations onto a single pane of glass.

Antony Adshead: Who is using a multi-cloud environment, and what for?

Ricardo Mendes: Mainly for two things. One is for taking advantage of the different services different clouds provide, from infrastructure-as-a-service things, products, to platform-as-a-service products, which have different price tags, which in some cases have different capabilities and performance things, and all of that. It’s common that companies want to take advantage of the best services between the different cloud providers.

Another thing that is very common is to use multiple clouds for disaster recovery. So, when something bad happens with one, or potentially, when a bad thing happens with one provider, they can still provide their services to their customers, and so, in this case, have their IT up and running. In terms of the companies that are in multi-cloud, I would say, as of today, almost all the companies have kind of a multi-cloud environment.

They use multiple services from different [providers], not only the infrastructure-as-a-service or platform-as-a-service, but also software-as-a-service. I would say it’s not using different services in different departments, but using multiple services these cloud providers have for maybe even single-use cases.

What are the key challenges when it comes to running a multi-cloud environment?

I would say the biggest one is management.

Every time you add a new cloud to use in a company, you will have a new bill, a new set of price tags, a new set of services. Then, through this, you have to employ cyber security measures to all of these services. And, this is complicated because operationally it’s complicated, but also because you need expertise for each of these different clouds.

And, another huge challenge is the fact that if you rely on a specific cloud environment to provide your service as a company, you will create a new dependence on that specific cloud provider. So, deploying measures to avoid this dependency is also a huge challenge.

Would you like to drill down a little on the particular challenges of security in a multi-cloud approach? What are the key challenges there?

There is a big list, for sure, but I would say one of the major ones is related to data privacy. You have to ensure things like data encryption, key rotation, all these processes that are linked with data protection and linked with cyber security.

You have to employ them in different cloud providers. So, you will have a much bigger effort to have them right. Another thing is also – and I mentioned it earlier – to ensure the resiliency of your company and the services your company provides, despite any misbehaviour or problem these multiple cloud providers have.

It’s pretty clear and obvious that once you have more clouds, your surface of attack is bigger, so you have more things to protect against an insider and outsider attack. And this can be a huge, huge challenge.

And in some cases, I would say it would almost touch the impossible if it gets that hard.

Finally, how can enterprises mitigate the challenges of multi-cloud operations?

I would say it’s by using layers of automation and software, if you want – [for example,] software layers that reduce the challenges I mentioned and enable the benefits of the cloud, the resources and all of that through single panes of glass that have built in the capabilities to mitigate these cost-related issues, these cyber security-related issues, the management issues, while delivering a way of interacting with these resources in a very, very straightforward way.

There are a lot of examples out there, from networking to container-as-a-service, multi-cloud to storage in multi-cloud.

The solutions are out there and they are growing. And so I would say that this approach to the cloud is the way to go.