Getting it right : Cloud-native or Cloud-first or Multi-cloud
Nitin Gaur
AI~Digital Engineering & Solutions Lead | GenAI Consulting, Architecture, Thought Leadership
Cloud-native, cloud-first, multi-cloud – these are most frequently used words related to cloud strategy. No matter it is during customer proposals or internal technical discussions, you will find often people providing their own definitions. In this post, let us understand these terms through the contexts in which these are used.
Cloud-Native
No other term in cloud world is more talked about in 2018 than cloud-native. Accenture calls it A New Wave of Digital Disruption and strongly advise companies to adopt “cloud-native” mindset.
Organizations adopt cloud computing to increase the scalability and availability of apps but a new form of application development is needed to fully utilize it. Therefore, the context is application design and development.
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), an organization that aims to create and drive the adoption of the cloud-native programming paradigm, defines cloud-native as:
“Cloud native computing uses an open source software stack to be:
1. Containerized. Each part (applications, processes, etc) is packaged in its own container. This facilitates reproducibility, transparency, and resource isolation.
2. Dynamically orchestrated. Containers are actively scheduled and managed to optimize resource utilization.
3. Microservices-oriented. Applications are segmented into microservices. This significantly increases the overall agility and maintainability of applications.”
Above definitions can be summarized as – “An approach that builds software applications as microservices and runs them on a containerized and dynamically orchestrated platform to utilize the advantages of the cloud computing model.”
Netflix is one of the best example of cloud-native organization.
Cloud-First
For enterprises or startups, cloud is not an option but an IT necessity. Everyone wants to use cloud infrastructure but some are skeptical about migration journey. Therefore, the context is IT vision and strategy.
This strategy holds significance for product organizations such established ISVs or new startups. These are the organization or product born in cloud. For them it is not about cost as primary factor. More importantly leveraging cloud services for product development gives business agility to the enterprise.
Stripe is one of the best example of cloud-first organization.
Multi-cloud
Latest trend of enterprise cloud adoption emerging from the quest for best-of-breed features.
For example – a Microsoft-centric enterprise may choose Microsoft Azure for their apps, while choosing Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for ML engine and Amazon Web Services (AWS) for data analysis jobs.
Although vendor support is available for single cloud environment, but many organizations find tough to manage the complexity associated with multi-cloud operations. Therefore, the context is IT strategy and operations.
Experts caution against opting multi-cloud environment just to avoid vendor lock-in. Other reasons such as reliability and security are also irrelevant. This is separate topic that I’ll discuss in separate post later. However, it is important to focus on loosely coupled, containerized architecture, managing critical data closely and automating everything as key factors to be ready for cloud-to-cloud migration if required.
BMC is one of the example of multi-cloud consultancy services organization.
Disclaimer: I am not associated with any of the companies referenced in this article.
Senior Vice President, Managing Director- India Operations, Techwave
6 年Moving right workloads to right cloud is the key.....but Cloud is the necessity
AI~Digital Engineering & Solutions Lead | GenAI Consulting, Architecture, Thought Leadership
6 年Vamsi Behara Thanks for sharing your views. I think both cloud-native and multi-cloud can co-exist. No need to choose one over another at any given stage of any organization. I do agree cloud-first mostly applies to new product startups.
Data & AI Leader | Lead Data Architect | Driving Cloud, Lakehouse & Gen-AI Innovations | Trusted Advisor
6 年Hi Nitin, a good article, short and straight to the point. But I find all these terminoligies more as marketing buzz words. As you can see there is too much overlap between all these strategies. And these words disappear quickly the moment we sit with the customer. Because whether a major organization who is in the business for decades or a fresh startup, it is not possible to stick to just one approach. The major organization while migrating to cloud in phases might choose multi cloud in one stage and cloud native for other. Similarly the fresh startup might want to go for multi cloud due to the type of the products they are building. I only see these as 3 best practices with recommended strategies and no one practice or method can provide end to end solution.