Each cloud provider typically offers hundreds of services, but it is not guaranteed that a single provider can meet all the needs of an organization. By adopting a multi-cloud approach, organizations can choose the best services offered by multiple cloud providers and combine them. Different units within the same organization may require different services in terms of speed, performance, reliability, geographical location, security, and compliance.
If an organization develops and delivers its services using a single cloud provider, it becomes inseparably tied to that provider. Changing providers would require significant technological development efforts and substantial financial investment. While a provider may initially meet an organization's needs, as its services grow and other cloud providers expand their offerings, it may be necessary to change or complement the currently used provider with an additional cloud provider. Multi-cloud ensures that organizations, not providers, are in control of technical solutions and economic strategies. A multi-cloud approach provides the flexibility for an organization's applications to operate on different infrastructures in case one of them becomes unavailable.
The presence of multiple cloud providers in the market leads to competition where each provider strives to offer services at the lowest price. For many organizations, the main advantage of a multi-cloud strategy is the ability to choose from different cloud providers based on the most advantageous economic conditions. This way, organizations can freely select the most cost-effective provider, including contractual flexibility and payment models.
By utilizing more than one cloud provider, organizations have the opportunity to try out new services and technologies introduced by the choosen providers, without being limited to a single provider's choices. Through multi-cloud deployment automation, organizations can coordinate and manage their workloads using a DevOps approach, thus benefiting from innovations in orchestration across different cloud environments, their data, and internal infrastructure.
By utilizing third-party cloud providers, security becomes responsibility of the providers themselves. This ensures that organizations' security and regulatory requirements are fully met. For example, different units within an organization may require data centers in various regions due to regulatory reasons, and it is not guaranteed that a single cloud provider can cover all possible scenarios. Moreover, multi-cloud guarantees the ability to manage various aspects of cloud infrastructure, including security standards, from a single, centralized control point.
By relying on multiple cloud providers, downtime is reduced in the event of errors. A problem with a service offered by one cloud provider does not necessarily impact services offered by other cloud providers. Furthermore, if one cloud is inactive at a given time, immediate needs can be handled by another ready-to-use cloud.