As more companies lean into digital transformation, comparing single cloud vs. multi-cloud use cases is crucial to determining the best strategy for your needs.
The advent of the Internet has brought revolutionary changes in the IT world. One of the notable changes is that virtualization has advanced with the Internet to become an integral part of the IT infrastructure of modern organizations. As a result, companies are now relying on the virtual online entity housing data and services, commonly referred to as the cloud. The switch to the cloud was brought on by the exponential data growth in the last couple of decades. In fact, studies predict that by 2025, the cloud will be storing up to 100 zettabytes of data.What Is the Cloud?
The cloud refers to a global network of remote servers, each with a unique function that are connected and work together as a unitary ecosystem. In simple terms, the cloud describes what we commonly know as the “internet.” This remote network of servers is designed to either store and manage data, run applications, or deliver content or a service such as streaming videos or accessing social media networks for anyone with an internet connection. What Is Cloud Computing?
It is the provision of computing resources such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the cloud (internet). Cloud computing eliminates the need for enterprises to acquire, configure, or manage resources themselves, and instead, only pay for what they use.
Virtual computers gained popularity in the 1990s when the IT industry started to rent virtual private networks. Their use sped up the development of the cloud computing infrastructure that organizations use today.
Cloud computing offers a variety of benefits for businesses with some of the key ones being:
Flexible resources
Cost savings
Scalability with growing business needs
Data recovery
Security
With that being said, there are three main types of cloud computing deployments:
Public Cloud – An open infrastructure for general public usage.
Private Cloud – Computing infrastructure that’s exclusively used by a single organization.
Hybrid Cloud – A combination of private and public cloud infrastructures.
Community Cloud – A collaborative cloud infrastructure shared by a community of organizations with similar requirements and regulations.
Single and multi-cloud concepts come from employing these deployment types from either one or numerous vendors. What Is a Single Cloud?
Single cloud is a cloud computing model where organizations rely on a single third-party vendor for their cloud computing services. The provider maintains on-premise servers to provide either of the following cloud services in the single-cloud environment:
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – a software on-demand service allowing users to utilize cloud-based applications such as email.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) – provides computing resources hosted on the cloud. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a famous IaaS example.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) – offers a development and deployment environment hosted on a provider’s cloud infrastructure. A good example in this category is Google App Engine. Single Cloud Use Cases
The single cloud strategy is suitable for companies with the following use cases:
Strict organizational regulations are in place for data and workload governance.
Insufficiency of skilled cloud engineers for efficient cloud workload management.
