The multi-cloud approach is the use of multiple cloud vendors to provide managed services. Multi-cloud MSPs (Managed Service Providers) provide managed services for different cloud providers, e.g. Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. The use of multiple cloud vendors provides numerous benefits to an organization looking to optimize performance, costs, and compliance.
Providing managed services for multiple cloud platforms is a challenging prospect to numerous MSPs. There is a mix of diverse applications, management tools, cloud complexity, and more.
In this article, we’ll explore the challenges to multi-cloud management.
Steep Learning Curve
There is no doubt that cloud platforms have a steep learning curve. Unlike traditional methods, it takes a while for MSPs (IT teams) to learn how best to manage a new cloud platform. Each cloud platform has a set of technical aspects that can be overwhelming.
Understanding more than one cloud platform seamlessly requires time. It’s challenging to acquire staff with multi-cloud skills, which is a significant challenge for most MSPs.
Security and Compliance Issues
MSPs that handle crucial customer data have to adhere to numerous regulatory standards. Many cloud platforms apply Shared Responsibility Model in maintaining cloud security. Cloud vendors manage platform-layer security while users implement appropriate controls to secure data and applications.
Since most MSPs’ customers are highly regulated, security and compliance teams face an uphill task to meet these requirements. MSPs struggle to juggle different dashboards across the multi-cloud environment to meet security and compliance requirements.
Limited Visibility to Infrastructure
Despite the large number of cloud-native tools that aim to provide visibility to the cloud, it’s challenging to discover all organizational assets in real-time. With multi-cloud management, users have to juggle numerous tools to gain visibility into the cloud, which requires more staff with skills that cut across each cloud environment.
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Inefficient Vendor Tools
Cloud management tools are flooding the current tech market. Users choose from a wide range of tools to gain a cutting-edge over their competitors. However, this isn’t clear-cut, as numerous tools have limited capabilities and do not work across cloud platforms.
With a multi-cloud approach, it’s difficult to find tools that provide the needed edge, which makes multi-cloud management an uphill task for MSPs.
Limited Skillset
Multi-cloud management requires a high level set of skills and sophistication. You need a team of IT team who can work across unrelated cloud platforms seamlessly. Finding such personnel isn’t easy, as most users prefer specializing in a single cloud platform.
Cost Complexity
Multi-cloud management requires a high level set of skills and sophistication. You need a team of IT team who can
One of the reasons for cloud migration is to cut costs while increasing efficiency and performance. However, cloud computing comes with a wide range of complex costs because of multifaceted billing systems.
With a multi-cloud approach, it’s possible to experience a significant increase in your cloud bill if not properly managed. Despite the numerous tools available, most MSPs find it hard to keep costs down, because they combine too many tech elements and services without high-level expertise.
Bottom Line
Multi-cloud management is challenging to most MSPs due to the above factors. Cost complexity, limited skillset, steep learning curve, and lack of visibility make it hard to manage multiple cloud platforms. Overcoming the above challenges is imperative to running a reliable MSP Business. If you can achieve proper management, the advantages of going multi-cloud outweigh the benefits.
nOps helps you to avoid most of the above challenges. It gives you 360-degree visibility over your multi-cloud environment, helps optimize costs, and does not have a learning curve. With nOps, you can analyze your cloud resources against the Well-Architected best practices to achieve high performance, reliability, cost optimization, and security.
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