Businesses want to take the maximum benefits of the services and flexibility of numerous cloud offerings. This reduces the cost of software development and lets the user enjoy the best cloud services. The adoption of the cloud has increased at both public and private levels. Multi-cloud architecture design is thought to be the best for enterprises. Some of the most common strategies and multi-cloud architectures are:
- Cloudification
This cloud architecture design basically promotes the use of various cloud services of different cloud platforms by the component of an application. This helps to improve performance. The application component gets hosted on-premise and then undergoes migration after which other cloud services can be used.
Once a component is hosted on-premise, it can use AWS storage service - AWS S3 after adopting a multi-cloud. Azure virtual machines can be used by the application for computing. This avoids vendor lock-in. Moreover, the availability is also enhanced because of application re-hosting in various clouds.
- Multi-cloud relocation
This design lets the component of the application to be re-hosted on the cloud platform. This results in the enhancement of capabilities by using other cloud services of multiple cloud platforms.
For example, an application component can be re-hosted on the AWS platform once it has been migrated. This makes the application open to use the services provided by Azure. Now it can use AWS S3 for storage and can compute through Azure or AWS.
This cloud design architecture is also responsible for improving the availability and avoiding vendor lock-in.
- Multi-cloud Rebinding
It involves the deployment of a re-architected application in numerous cloud environments. It enables the application to work using the secondary deployment if the primary platform fails to function. The application is deployed only partially on multiple cloud platforms.
Before migration, the two application components are hosted on-premise. Both the components are independent units where one component remains on-premise. The other components are used for disaster recovery and are deployed on Azure and AWS. The components are supported with the help of a Service Bus or EBS.
There is, however, a downtime issue persistent in this cloud architecture design, and seamless failover is not guaranteed. The advantage of using this architecture design is that the traffic is delivered once the services become healthy. The system becomes responsive again.
- Multi-cloud Refactor
In this cloud architecture design, the on-premise application is re-architected. It is then deployed on multiple cloud platforms. The aim of deployment is to provide enhanced QoS. It is re-architected in the form of fine-grained components. This aids in the independent optimization of the deployment of high-usage components and is independent of low-usage components.
Both independent components are hosted on-premise prior to migration. AWS S3 is used to deploy one component on AWS and Azure’s cloud services are used to deploy another component on Azure.
This design increases the scalability and agility of application to respond to any kind of IT changes. The technical issues are handled with the help of an on-premise application modernized in isolation.
- Multi-cloud Rebinding through Cloud Brokerage
This cloud architecture design helps in the deployment of a re-architected application partially on multiple cloud platforms. The application will function continuously using secondary deployment if the primary platform fails to function using cloud brokerage services.
The two re-architected application components are deployed on AWS and Azure while one component is deployed on-premise. All these three components are integrated using Cloud Broker Services. It provides you with the flexibility to select the services from multiple cloud platforms like Azure and AWS.
It makes the system responsive and lets the traffic delivered seamlessly once the services are restored back to normal.
- Multi-application Modernization
Here, various on-premise applications are re-architected. It is done in the form of a portfolio and the deployment is carried out on different cloud environments.
The operation and maintenance costs are reduced for shared components using this cloud architecture design. Consistent information and rules are also provided in shared components. However, it lacks the business commitment to shared capabilities.
In Conclusion
Multi-cloud architecture offers a completely secure and strong cloud environment for small and medium businesses. However, maximizing the effect of multi-cloud architecture raises some tough challenges of unique portals, migration, compliance, etc. Its prime aim is to utilize the clouds as per the requirements though switching between a number of cloud providers might be a complicated task. However, with the transforming technologies, the complications of switching between multiple cloud providers will get resolved.