Hold Up: Another View on Multicloud Takes Root for 2021

Even as many within the channel tout a multicloud approach, other experts disagree. And that indicates a split trend coming to life in 2021. Sure, multicloud has its advantages – flexibility, reliability, cost-performance optimization – but it has drawbacks, too. In sum, multicloud “shouldn’t be an industry best practice.”

That’s the word from Patrick Hubbard, head geek at SolarWinds.

“According to a 2020 IDG survey, 55% of organizations use two or more public clouds, but 79% struggle to achieve synergy across their multiple platforms,” Hubbard says. “Now and in the future, we’ll see a growing number of companies rethink multicloud or consolidate around a single cloud provider.”

ServerCentral Turing Group’s Tom Kiblin agrees. Companies will strive to be cloud-agnostic, he says, but most will land on one vendor.

“The realization of the complexities that multicloud brings, coupled with the fact that you lose many of the benefits of public cloud when going entirely agnostic, will drive a continued trend toward a single or a minimal number of vendors,” says Kiblin, vice president of managed services at SCTG, a Chicago-based MSP and cloud consultancy. “Deciding which workloads go where and optimizing will be crucial for MSPs as they help their clients realize cloud ROI.”