Allan King, managing director, Buttonwood Cloud Exchange
We work with customers to deliver the technology and processes needed to support a hybrid multi-cloud operating model. When we first engage IT they often believe that a single-cloud model is fit for purpose. However, as we mature the conversation they quickly realise that, while IT intends to operationalise BAU services onto a single cloud, business is looking beyond the borders of IT to new services often delivered by multiple providers.
For IT to remain relevant, they must transform and become a broker of multi-cloud outcomes. Why? Because business is demanding greater choice and agility. Furthermore, leading vendors are accelerating the delivery of their own products as a cloud only offering.
Buttonwood believes in the power of choice. Our mission is to help organisations address the challenge of managing a multi-cloud environment with the simplicity of managing one.
Simon Heath, chief technology officer, SXiQ
From our experience the answer is “it depends”.
The adoption of a multi-cloud strategy can bring several benefits to an organisation, but having two or more of anything comes at a cost, so we typically don’t see this type of strategy for organisations spending below $100,000 per month.
Once we exceed this type of investment profile, organisations are recognising benefits that justify the cost overhead.
These are typically focused on creating greater flexibility in innovation (both internally by each cloud provider and externally within the system integrator community), adopting best of breed technologies across the multiple SaaS, PaaS and IaaS options to deliver the best outcomes, regulatory compliance and protection against black swan events.
Damian Zammit, general manager of transformation services, Thomas Duryea Logicalis
Although customers are adopting a multitude of cloud solutions, not a single organisation has asked us about ’multi-cloud’ or asked for us to recommend them a multi-cloud solution.
The reality is, customers are choosing the best solutions to match their business needs. Given the market has largely moved to an as-a-service based model whether it’s payroll, Office 365, CRM, storage or infrastructure, customers will choose the right blend of cloud solutions for their needs in consultation with their IT partner.
The driving force in the decision tends to be interoperability and ease of integration with existing platforms. I think in summary, the term multi-cloud is a buzzword and the term is bigger than the actual solution. We will always focus on customer outcomes first and then look at the platform to support how it integrates.
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