Hybrid and Multicloud: An Explainer Guide

The use of Kubernetes is continuing to grow and has reached its highest levels. About 96% of enterprises are using or evaluating the technology, according to CNCF’s 2021 Cloud-Native Survey. And why wouldn’t they? Kubernetes offers enormous advantages, including that it’s infrastructure-agnostic. This means that it can operate across any environment, such as on-premise, hybrid, and multi-cloud. 

This article will dive deep into the hybrid and multi-cloud models that many organizations are adopting. We will start with some basic definitions, their benefits, and how enterprises can effectively make the most of these infrastructure approaches with GitOps. 

If you’re already familiar with these terms, read this use case here“Manage Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Complexity with GitOps.” 

Hybrid Cloud Vs. Multi-Cloud: Understand the Differences

Although multi-cloud and hybrid cloud infrastructures have many similarities, they are two different IT infrastructure models. 

A hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment that brings together two or more distinct cloud infrastructures, be they private, community, or public. These infrastructures are bound together by standardized technology, enabling application and data portability. In other words, a hybrid cloud is a combination of clouds where you can run your application and data. 

On the other hand, multi-cloud refers to the use of two or more cloud computing services.  The term can be used to describe any implementation of multiple SaaS or PaaS offerings. Generally, it refers to the use of public infrastructure as a service offering such as those provided by AWS and Microsoft Azure.  More and more companies are using the multi-cloud approach to access best-of-breed services, reduce costs, and avoid vendor lock-in. 

Watch this on-demand webinar to learn more about Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Strategies for Kubernetes with GitOps. 

Benefits of Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Deployments

Hybrid and multi-cloud strategies offer a wide array of benefits to orgnizations. Let’s take a look at some of them.

1. Scalability: the hybrid approach provides ‘additional resources” on-demand. For digital companies, especially startups, a spike in application usage can be countered by shifting use to the public cloud provider. 

2. Reliability: In a multi-cloud deployment, if there are any issues or downtime with one cloud provider, the business can easily switch to another one. This redundancy ensures business continuity and avoids potential system outages. 

3. Avoid vendor lock-in: with multi-cloud deployments, companies can pick and choose the best features and resources available. Systems and storage are spread across multiple providers, giving businesses the flexibility they need at any given time.

4. Improved performance: The use of multiple public cloud platforms allows businesses to provide the best digital services to their customers, 24/7, and anywhere in the world. Applications can be distributed globally, data and key services can be hosted according to the need and demand. 

5. Cost-effectiveness: Most public cloud providers use a ‘pay per use model”, meaning that you only pay for the resources you use. This automatically translates into lower costs during periods of low demand.

Challenges with Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Models 

Although hybrid and multi-cloud models offer many advantages, there are many challenges to be aware of:

1. Increased complexity: Whether you’re using the hybrid or the multi-cloud, it means you have to interface with multiple cloud providers and/or manage several environments simultaneously.  Each cloud provider and environment comes with its own set of processes and technologies, and thus managing can be pretty complicated. 

2. Handling multiple providers: Both the hybrid and multi-cloud strategies involve several public cloud providers. Depending on the demand and the status, workloads are shifted dynamically from one provider to the next. Additionally, each provider comes with its own set of processes and technology.  All of which makes management of these models complicated and confusing. 

3. Cost management: Each cloud provider offers a charging model and the choices you make in managing the workloads will directly affect the total costs. Service fees, licensing charges, and costs of usage are a sample of how each cloud provider may charge - all of which may change over time. 

4. Scalability: Many organizations choose the hybrid model so can easily scale up their operations as needed, to react to a spike in demand for example. They want to be able easily switch from a private cloud to public cloud. The problem here is that Kuberentes is implemented different by competing public cloud providers. For example, configurations scripts, access controls, service mesh networking, and data portability varies from one providers to the other posing serious problems for operations teams. 

All of the above challenges prove that centralization and automation are key to the success of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. 

Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Management with Weave GitOps

Hybrid and multi-cloud architectures are more difficult to set up and manage than the single cloud setup. For businesses to realize the benefits of these new approaches, they need an operational model to centralize and automate much of the underlying configuration and management.  And Weave GitOps, a full-stack GitOps platform, is an effective solution to manage a Kubernetes hybrid and multi-cloud strategy. 

Based on GitOps practices, Weave GitOps is a hybrid and multi-cloud management solution. With GitOps, Git is the single source of truth. All configurations for applications, clouds, and Kubernetes are declared in Git and any changes are made through a commit to a Git repository. These changes are automatically pulled to a production environment, irrespective of the underlying infrastructure in the clouds, be it public or private cloud, or your own data center. 

GitOps is an effective operational framework to successfuly deploy and maintain a Kubernetes platform. Read this whitepaper “Multi-Cloud Strategies with Kubernetes and GitOps” to learn more of how to operationalize hybrid and multi-cloud models with GitOps. 

Visit Weaveworks’ use case page to learn more about GitOps and hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios. For more information about Weave GitOps, visit the Weave GitOps product page or contact us for a demo now.