Editor’s Question: What are the latest developments you expect to see in the cloud market?

Bassam Al Masri, Director of Channel, Distribution and OEM – METI at Nutanix, explains why he thinks the future of the cloud is multi-cloud.

The future of cloud is the emergence of multi-cloud. As both public and private cloud continue to mature, many companies opt for both, leveraging multiple clouds to satisfy their diverse enterprise computing needs. Multi-cloud allows companies to choose the right cloud for each workload, be it a mission-critical core application such as enterprise resource planning or cutting-edge cloud-native analytics apps. With multi-cloud, IT gets to focus on the key drivers of enterprise innovation and differentiation –applications and data.

Multi-cloud combines on-premise operations with services and applications running on multiple cloud providers, which enables organisations to capture the benefits of each platform while mitigating their downsides. For example, an IT organisation might use one public cloud service with inexpensive storage, a different public cloud with unique native applications, a private cloud for sensitive customer data and on-premise infrastructure for handling AI/ML workloads.

It’s all about application mobility and having the choice and the freedom to move your workloads (from on-premise to off-premise and perhaps back again in a predictable and controlled manner) whenever the business environment demands change. And what we know about business is that there is constant change, so you need to be able to adapt.

Below are some of the benefits of a multi-cloud model:

Optimised performance for each application

Each public and private cloud has its own advantages and drawbacks. With multi-cloud, companies can assemble the infrastructure that best suits their various needs, providing optimal flexibility and scalability for some applications and optimal control and security for others. The result is the right performance, cost and control for each application and use case across the organisation.

Improved data governance

The multi-cloud model allows organisations to run workloads on different platforms to maximise each of these factors. They can store massive amounts of non-sensitive data on public clouds while keeping private user data safe and secure on private clouds or on-premise infrastructure.

Lower total cost of ownership

Some organisations are deterred by the initial price of a multi-cloud platform. In fact, the total cost of ownership (TCO) is often significantly lower than traditional infrastructure. According to IDC research, multi-cloud platforms can save companies 40-60% on IT expenses over time.

So, the future is going to be about having a single environment which blends all clouds together and provides ultimate flexibility and freedom through software which automates and places workloads in the most appropriate cloud for your business at a point in time. Ultimately this will ensure companies do not to put all their eggs in one basket and can adapt quickly in this new digital economy.