Knowledge and experience sharing seminar: Implementation of Multicloud Strategies
Introduction
The adoption of multicloud architectures is a strategic response to evolving organizational needs in today’s digital landscape. Motivations for this transition include mitigating risks, such as disaster recovery and business continuity. Diversifying across multiple cloud providers enables organizations to weather potential service outages by seamlessly shifting services to maintain business continuity. Another aspect to consider involves addressing vendor lock-in and the challenge of irreversibility. Using multiple cloud providers minimizes dependencies on provider-specific services, enhancing the portability of applications and data. Organizations prioritize comprehensive exit strategies, outlining the process and considerations for transitioning workloads away from specific providers. Furthermore, the pursuit of innovation and technology adoption propels organizations towards leveraging multiple cloud providers. This approach empowers them to swiftly embrace new technologies and innovations introduced by various providers, breaking free from the constraints of a single provider’s roadmap. Cost optimization is also a crucial consideration, with multicloud environments enabling organizations to select cost-effective services from different providers, facilitating efficient resource allocation tailored to specific workload requirements.
Despite the promises and advantages, the journey towards realizing the potential of multicloud strategies is not without challenges. The intricacies of managing and integrating diverse cloud platforms demand careful consideration and strategic planning. Issues related to seamless data migration across different providers and potential disruptions pose significant hurdles. Moreover, the imperative to uphold consistent and robust security measures across multiple clouds necessitates a vigilant and comprehensive approach.
In this domain where only a few organizations have hands-on experience, this event seeks to bridge the knowledge gap by sharing insights and experiences from those who have successfully navigated the challenges of implementing multicloud strategies. It provides a platform to delve into real-world experiences and best practices in the evolving multicloud landscape.
This event is organized by the Center for Digital Trust (C4DT) and builds on C4DT’s Conference on Trustworthy and Sovereign Cloud Computing, which was held in September 2023 at the Starling Hotel, St.-Sulpice.
What are Knowledge & Experience Sharing Seminars?
They allow participants to deepen their knowledge on specific sovereign cloud-related topics by learning from experts who have hands-on experience gained while working on a sovereign cloud-related project. Participants are not required to contribute but are invited to ask questions and engage in a discussion with the speakers.
The seminars will be held in-person on the EPFL campus or via Zoom meetings and shall not exceed 2 hours in duration. The number of participants will be limited to 30 to allow for more interaction and exchange between the participants and the speakers.
Objective
To share experiences about and insights on the implementation of multicloud strategies from different industries’ perspectives.
Target audience
This seminar is for the cloud professional (technical or strategic profiles). The talks will focus more on governance and strategy and less on technical details.
Potential discussion points
There are some of the topics that might be addressed during the talks:
- Business Drivers for the chosen Multicloud strategy:
- Understanding how each organization’s multicloud strategy aligns with organizational goals (risk mitigation, vendor lock-in avoidance, innovation and cost optimization, etc).
- Cost considerations and return on investment.
- Success Metrics and KPIs:
- Identifying key success metrics for the multicloud initiative, such as workload performance, cost optimization, resource utilization, time to market and availability and uptime.
- Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure progress.
- Risk Management:
- Identifying and mitigating risks associated with the multicloud adoption.
- Creating contingency plans for potential challenges.
- Governance and Compliance:
- Enforcing uniform policies across multiple cloud providers, ensuring alignment with organizational security and compliance needs.
- Implementing regular audits to ensure adherence to internal and external standards, while addressing data residency and sovereignty requirements to comply with relevant regulations.
- Security Measures:
- Implementing security measures without hindering business agility.
- Aligning security policies with industry compliance standards.
- User Experience and Adoption:
- Assessing the impact on end-users during migration and ongoing operations.
- Ensuring a seamless experience for end-users accessing services across multiple clouds.
- Strategies for encouraging adoption and collaboration.
- Data Interoperability:
- Addressing challenges related to data formats and structures.
- Implementing data interoperability standards for seamless data exchange.
- API Compatibility:
- Ensuring compatibility and standardization of APIs across different cloud providers.
- Facilitating smooth integration and interoperability.
- Workload Placement and Optimization:
- Determining the optimal placement of workloads across different clouds.
- Utilizing load balancing and auto-scaling for performance optimization.
- DevOps and Automation:
- Integrating DevOps practices for efficient deployment and management.
- Leveraging automation tools for scalability and agility.
- Resilience and Redundancy:
- Building resilience into multicloud architectures.
- Implementing redundancy to ensure high availability.
- Training and Skill Development:
- Investing in training programs for IT teams.
- Developing the necessary skills for managing multicloud environments.
- Cost Management:
- Implementing cost monitoring tools and practices.
- Strategies for optimizing costs while maintaining performance.
- Long-Term Vendor Strategy:
- Developing a long-term strategy for vendor relationships.
- Evaluating and adapting multicloud strategies based on the evolving cloud landscape.
- Exit Strategy:
- Developing a clear exit strategy in case of the need to migrate away from one or more cloud providers.
Schedule
10h00
Welcome
10h05
Experience sharing talks by AXA, [organization 1], [organization 2]:
- [Speaker 1 from Insurance sector]
- [Speaker 2 from Energy/Utility sector]
- [Speaker 3 from Banking/Finance sector]
11h30
Q&A and Experience Sharing
- Allowing participants to share their governance and strategy experiences.
- Addressing general questions from the audience to all speakers