Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 36 | Page 34

FEATURE: CLOUD SOLUTIONS ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Globally, 85% of enterprises are operating in a multi-cloud environment with most of the balance planning on embracing this methodology by 2021. Trent Odgers, Cloud and Hosting Manager, Africa, at Veeam, says that, in South Africa, the recent arrival of multinational data centres, as well as carrier and cloud neutral data centres, means that expectations are high that local organisations will follow suit. in the beginning of the journey are starting to manage their budget smarter in order to deliver on their business requirements in increasingly innovative ways. Already, businesses are experimenting more with multi-cloud strategies and solutions better suited to the new way of doing business in a more consumption-based model. One of the key things behind this adoption is the ability to get data to and from cloud providers simply, safely and securely thanks to advanced backup and availability solutions that have built in cloud connect capabilities. These capabilities assist in delivering true multi-cloud capabilities without the risk of lock in. Companies can, therefore, shift between providers as their needs change, or if they are not happy with service delivery. This is in stark contrast to the past when this used to be a complicated and time-intensive process. Backup and availability U nlike a hybrid cloud which combines private and public cloud services for a common goal, multi-cloud entails using different clouds for different tasks. For example, provider X might be used for data warehousing while provider Y might be relied on for Machine Learning capabilities and provider Z for productivity capabilities. In the last few years, we have seen more South African companies actively putting plans in place to migrate to multi-cloud and many have mature models in place. Those organisations who began the process a while ago have already realised lower costs and improved service delivery, while those still South Africa ‘is well on its way to becoming a 34 INTELLIGENTCIO More sophisticated backup and availability solutions that provide effective and reliable ways of migrating data between cloud providers and even from the cloud to on- premise and vice versa are aiding in this pursuit. This means that when you are reviewing your data protection strategy, you need to ensure that your vendor has these advanced restore capabilities built into the software. This gives decision-makers the peace of mind they need to examine the opportunities that are provided in the multi- cloud world. There is no single reason behind this push to the multi-cloud. Aspects such as improved connectivity at lower costs, ease of use, cloud-first market’ www.intelligentcio.com