• Specific cost advantages can be achieved by targeting different cloud
providers with different workloads
As we begin to make the transition from a single cloud platform to multiple ones,
several areas of consideration are key to ensuring scalability, stability and operational excellence. These include: Architecture, Operations, Vendor Management and Third-Party Tooling. Each of these categories will have unique requirements for staffing, planning and investment ahead of a multi-cloud adoption, to
ensure continued acceleration in the successful adoption of IT resources.
Architecture
Architectural changes will be required to support multiple cloud platforms.
The most important decision to be made early in the adoption process is the
level of portability targeted between providers, versus the need for specialized,
advanced capabilities only available on some providers’ platforms.
The MVC (Minimum Viable Cloud) is an important concept when defining the
functional requirements and technical implementations for an organization’s
use of public cloud providers. Functional MVC requirements should stay uniform
across all cloud deployments, providing a consistent level of capability in multicloud deployments. The MVC technical implementation will then vary based on
provider capabilities and specific architectural implementations.
As the use of multiple cloud vendors matures, the MVC will mature to add additional functionality. The goal with multi-cloud deployments is consistency
across vendors, with equivalent connectivity and access, allowing staff to fully
utilize the unique capabilities any vendor may provide. Figure 1 shows the common elements that go into building an MVC and a typical phased approach for
assessment and implementation.
Phase 1
Assessments
Phase 2
Build MVC
Applications
Networking
Security
VPC
Economics
Accounts
CloudOps
Tools
DevOps
IAM/Security
Infrastructure
Automation
Encryption
Image Management
Logging
Monitoring
Storage
Figure 1: MVC Definition & Phased Rollout
78 | THE DOPPLER | FALL 2016
Minimum Viable
Cloud