Most data centers manage multiple clouds, and this number is growing. To handle this, organizations need a solid cloud data management strategy. This ensures data quality, integrity, and governance across platforms.

Many organizations use VMware for on-premises clouds. Some also use hyperconverged solutions like Nutanix.

Multi-cloud use can be as simple as backup to public cloud storage. It can also involve disaster recovery.

However, cloud data management offers much more than just backup and recovery. It provides a range of benefits for data storage and integrity.

The cloud, though, can offer much more than backup mirroring and disaster recovery.

Organizations are moving workloads to the cloud for various reasons. Some use cloud resources for development and testing. Others "lift and shift" applications to run natively in the cloud. A good multi-cloud data management solution is crucial for these tasks.

The main goal of this strategy is to supply sensitive data to different cloud use cases. This involves copying or moving data while maintaining quality. Data management software is key to this process.

Unifying the multi-cloud experience is important. Most data protection apps use their own interface, which adds complexity. An easy alternative is to use a single solution built for each cloud. This keeps the interface familiar for IT administrators.

Purpose-built solutions need an overlay for communication. This overlay helps manage tools and move data across clouds. It makes day-to-day operations easier for administrators. They do not need expertise in every cloud the organization uses.

The importance of the overlay

There are a variety of reasons organizations may want to leverage multiple clouds. The first use case is to use public cloud storage as a backup mirror to an on-premises data protection process. Using public cloud storage as a backup mirror enables the organization to automatically off-site data. It also sets up many of the more advanced use cases.

For example, organizations might use public cloud for backup mirroring. This allows automatic off-site data storage. It also enables more advanced uses, like cloud archiving for older data warehouses. This can reduce on-premises storage costs.

An essential aspect of the backup to cloud use case is the ability to switch clouds. The challenge when switching public cloud backup targets is what to do with the data in the original public cloud provider. Pulling all the historical data from that first cloud provider may be cost-prohibitive because of egress fees. Instead, the data management solution needs to support multiple cloud targets simultaneously. It should be able to facilitate restores from either cloud while directing new backup copies to the new cloud. Then, as data fulfills its retention requirements, IT can remove it from the old cloud, avoiding egress fees.

Another use case is using the cloud for disaster recovery. Since the data protection solution is already sending backup data to the cloud, the software only needs to manage the movement of that data integrity from low-cost cloud storage to more production class storage. In most cases, either the software or the user needs to transform the virtual machine into a format native to the cloud provider’s hypervisor.

The data management solution, in addition to data protection, should also be able to position data so the organization can use it in Dev/Test use cases. These use cases require the solution to copy the data to the cloud and position it for use. It leverages steps similar to using the cloud for disaster recovery. The data management software should also automatically update the Dev/Test data set on a scheduled basis so that these teams are working with a recent copy of the data.

"Lift and Shift" moves applications to run natively in the cloud. This requires special attention to data governance and protection. Purpose-built solutions help with in-cloud data protection. The overlay ensures overall protection and allows movement between clouds if needed.

What are the multi-cloud use cases?

The value of purpose-built cloud management solution is, they are easy for administrators of the specific cloud platform to learn and operate. It enables the organization to delegate data protection to an administrator with domain expertise on that particular cloud. It also provides organizations with better scaling of the data management process since the purpose-built approach distributes the function across multiple team members.

Multi-cloud, by definition, requires cross-cloud operations. It seems at this point, however, that the purpose-built method becomes a hindrance. At the same time, organizations typically want to avoid the legacy approach of a unique backup application interface that has little in common with any of the clouds the organization has in operation. The increase in complexity and training time is more than most organizations can tolerate.

The overlay approach provides a bridge between the various purpose-built solutions. It enables day-to-day operations, those within the particular cloud domain, to be run by that domain’s administrator. Multi-cloud operations, regardless of use case, are driven by the overlay’s administrator. That administrator does not need to develop domain expertise in every cloud the organization is using, just the overlay software, which facilitates the data copies or movement.

Conclusion

Multi-cloud environments are now common for most organizations. Managing data movement between these clouds is crucial.

Organizations prefer not to burden administrators with learning new interfaces outside their expertise.

Create a cloud data management strategy that includes two key elements:

1. Using purpose-built solutions within each cloud
2. Implementing an overlay solution for inter-cloud data movement

This approach optimizes both internal cloud management and cross-cloud operations. It allows organizations to maintain data quality and governance while leveraging existing expertise. It provides them simplicity within the domain and across the domain while enabling capabilities most solutions can’t offer.

About Storage Switzerland, LLC

Storage Switzerland is the leading storage analyst firm focused on the emerging storage categories of memory-based storage (Flash), Big Data, virtualization, and cloud computing. The firm is widely recognized for its blogs, white papers and videos on current approaches such as all-flash arrays, deduplication, SSD’s, software-defined storage, backup appliances and storage networking. The name “Storage Switzerland” indicates a pledge to provide neutral analysis of the storage marketplace, rather than focusing on a single vendor approach.

About HYCU, Inc.

HYCU makes it easy to thrive in a hyper-simple hyper-converged world. HYCU believes in the art of subtraction, where less is more. Where powerful technology looks extremely simple and delivers extraordinary results. That’s why they’re so bullish on hyper-converged and why they believe that data management should be as easy as powering up and hitting go. HYCU data protection and monitoring products excel at helping IT take back the data center without breaking a sweat. You’ll eliminate roadblocks, boost application performance and reliability, and deploy our products before your coffee gets cold.