It’s a Multi-Cloud World We’re Living In

Industry experts and pundits have asserted for some time that multi-cloud is the future of cloud computing for enterprises, and I’d be inclined to agree with them. A study conducted by Microsoft and 451 Research revealed that a majority of enterprises, 79 percent, work with more than one provider, with 29 percent reporting they work with four or more cloud/hosting vendors.

 
There are a number of reasons for the shift toward multi-cloud environments. Some organizations simply want to have more options. By using multiple cloud providers and cloud platforms to support different applications and workloads, organizations have a constantly evolving array of features and capabilities that they can cherry-pick from to tailor their solutions. Also, some make use of multiple providers in an attempt to combat latency issues. This can be especially true for geographically dispersed organizations that need support across different regions with different data jurisdictions. 

As the deployments on the cloud have increased, so has the complexity and sophistication in which organizations are using it. Cookie cutter clouds are a thing of the past–organizations now want to architect the best environments in which to manage their specific applications, so it’s becoming increasingly important to match the application with the cloud. While multi-cloud environments do come with some complexity, the upsides certainly outweigh the challenges. Multi-cloud environments can reduce cost and risk for an enterprise, and also provide extended capabilities and optimal services for specific workloads. 

In order to meet this growing demand for more flexibility and freedom in the cloud, are providing managed services on top of the Microsoft Azure platform. (This was announced at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference during my Q&A with Aziz Benmalek.) The service is designed to complement existing NaviSite Cloud and bare metal hosting services, where customers can benefit from the union of 24/7/365 NaviSite monitoring and management and a highly scalable, stable Microsoft Azure cloud environment. By providing the ability to deploy and manage both physical and cloud workloads in both NaviSite and Azure data centers, NaviSite is able to fulfill customer IT requirements based on business need, not technical limitations. 

With this new service, NaviSite and Microsoft are building on a 20-year partnership of delivering customized and flexible network architectures–platforms that help alleviate routine infrastructure management and maintenance burdens, as well as enable internal IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives and overall customer satisfaction.

As we, and the industry, move forward on a progressive journey expanding into multi-cloud compute environments, we see a tremendous opportunity to leverage our strong partnership and our extensive experience and Microsoft-certified employee skills to bring more value and new strategic solutions to our customers.  

Sumeet Sabharwal is Group Vice President and General Manager, NaviSite.

Guest blogs such as this one are published monthly and are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship.