To say that cloud adoption has been accelerating might be an understatement. Enterprises are after what the cloud provides: speed, agility, simplicity, and lower costs. Gone are the days of managing an expensive data center.

Though IT managers love cloud benefits, various studies show that that fear of vendor lock-in—being stuck with a vendor who no longer suits your needs—is real for a lot of companies. And this fear is growing with each passing year, which may hinder the agility and speed you need to thrive.

The best way to alleviate these concerns? Implementing a multi-cloud strategy.

Before the cloud even existed, companies used multiple database vendors. This strategy isn’t new, we’re just moving it onto the cloud. Let’s take a look at:

• The multi-cloud
• Multi-cloud strategy
• Why you’d use this approach
• Benefits of the multi-cloud
• Challenges
• Data safety
• How to choose
• Additional resources

What is the multi-cloud?

Multi-cloud is the practice of using more than one cloud platform in your cloud approach. It isn’t a kind of technology, just an approach. If you are using more than one cloud or cloud provider, it’s multi-cloud.

Easy.

(Understand and compare public, private & hybrid clouds.)

What is a multi-cloud strategy?

A multi-cloud strategy is the intention and implementation of multi-cloud. It’s choosing to be in the multi-cloud on purpose—not by default.

For instance, many companies first move into the cloud tepidly, one small service or application at a time. Soon, this becomes unwieldy and you have to clean up your cloud sprawl. You need a strategy.

Strategizing for the multi-cloud, as we’ll show, means reflecting on what your needs are and what vendor aligns with them best. For instance, the difference might be between homogenous and heterogenous clouds:

• A homogenous cloud may include several different clouds, but all from the same vendor.
• A heterogenous cloud, on the other hand, could mean three public clouds from three vendors.

They’re all multi-cloud strategies, but one will work better for you than others.