There’s a new expression in circulation, “multicloud”. It’s just the thing for buzzword bingo, but what does it mean?

At Bristol IT Company, we’ve been fans of the cloud for years. We use it ourselves and provide a range of cloud services to our customers. If implemented properly, it provides a wide range of benefits and opportunities (some are listed in the panel).

Cloud services have evolved and matured, and it has become very obvious that there is no one-size-fits-all option. Taking a quick look at all of the companies providing cloud storage highlights this, from Amazon (for big enterprises) and Box, through Google and Microsoft, even to cloud.Z.com (if you’re in Singapore!).

You may already have a range of cloud services in your own business. If so, then you’re probably being driven by the need to get best value-for-money, increase performance, and reduce risk.

So, the growing use of multiple cloud vendors, partly for redundancy and partly for their niche expertise, has now been named “multicloud”. It’s even got its own vestigial Wikipedia entry, so it has to be official!

Although there are benefits to using a variety of specialist cloud vendors, it brings with it an unwanted layer of complexity, questions such as who in the organisation is using which vendor and service, and why? What data is stored in which cloud? Why can’t it be managed all in one place?

Multicloud has a silver lining

To make the management of multicloud solutions easier, a number of specialist services have been launched. www.otixo.com for example, enables individuals and workgroups to connect to a wide range of public cloud storage providers through the Otixo platform, to access and transfer documents stored in numerous locations. And at the high-end, even Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), historically a hardware manufacturer, has entered this new market with its Helion Propel cloud-brokerage service for managing enterprise-wide cloud deployment.
There is clearly a need for a multitude of specialist cloud services in all sizes of modern, connected business. The good news is that services are now appearing to allow effective management of all this new complexity.

Benefits

• Reliability
• Flexibility
• Security
• Low / zero capital outlay
• Inherent disaster recovery
• Environmentally friendly
• Document control built-in
• Automatic updates
• Collaborative working
• Secure sharing with partners
• Cost savings

To help you understand the right cloud solution for you check out our recent blog post: “Does every cloud (solution) have a silver lining?”or alternatively, give us a call on 0117 370 0777 or contact us via our online form.