Insights from 500+ enterprise IT leaders on multi-cloud strategies and outcomes
VStream Labs surveyed 500 enterprise IT leaders across North America and Europe to understand how organizations are approaching multi-cloud strategies in 2024. Our research reveals that 87% of enterprises now use multiple cloud providers, but only 42% have a coherent multi-cloud management strategy.
This report examines the drivers behind multi-cloud adoption, common challenges faced by enterprises, and proven strategies for maximizing the benefits while minimizing complexity and cost.
Our research identified five primary drivers for multi-cloud adoption:
Organizations want flexibility to negotiate pricing and avoid dependency on a single provider's roadmap. Multi-cloud strategies provide leverage in vendor relationships and reduce strategic risk.
Different cloud providers excel in different areas. AWS dominates compute, Azure integrates well with Microsoft ecosystems, and GCP leads in AI/ML capabilities. Organizations want access to each provider's strengths.
Data residency requirements and latency considerations drive multi-cloud adoption. Some regions are better served by specific providers, requiring geographic diversification.
Multi-cloud architectures provide protection against provider outages. Organizations distribute critical workloads across providers to ensure business continuity.
Acquisitions often bring different cloud environments. Rather than forcing migration, many organizations adopt multi-cloud strategies to integrate acquired companies while maintaining operational stability.
While multi-cloud offers significant benefits, our research reveals substantial challenges:
Managing multiple consoles, APIs, and toolsets increases operational overhead. 61% report needing specialized skills for each platform.
Different pricing models and billing structures make cost optimization difficult. 78% struggle with cloud cost visibility and attribution.
Maintaining consistent security policies across providers is complex. 55% lack unified security monitoring and compliance reporting.
Moving data between clouds is expensive and slow. 63% cite data integration as their biggest multi-cloud challenge.
Based on our work with Fortune 500 clients, we've developed a comprehensive framework for successful multi-cloud implementation:
Define clear objectives for multi-cloud adoption. Establish governance models, cloud selection criteria, and workload placement strategies. Create a cloud center of excellence.
Implement abstraction layers for common services. Use tools like Terraform for infrastructure-as-code, Kubernetes for container orchestration, and unified observability platforms.
Design data integration strategy using tools like Apache NiFi and Databricks. Establish data residency policies, implement data catalogs, and optimize cross-cloud data movement.
Implement cloud-agnostic security policies. Use tools like Prisma Cloud or Azure Arc for unified security posture management. Automate compliance reporting across all platforms.
Deploy multi-cloud cost management tools. Implement tagging strategies, establish chargeback models, and automate resource right-sizing. Monitor and optimize cross-cloud data transfer costs.
A Fortune 100 retailer engaged VStream Labs to optimize their multi-cloud environment spanning AWS, Azure, and GCP. They were spending $45M annually across providers with limited visibility and significant waste.
Our Approach: We implemented a unified cloud management platform, established FinOps practices, and migrated workloads to optimal platforms based on cost and performance requirements.
Our cloud experts can assess your environment and build a roadmap for optimization.
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