Kubernetes is a pioneering communication tool that allows developers, operators, policymakers, and infrastructure providers to communicate in a language that is both human-readable/writeable and actionable by machines.
For years, organisations of all sizes have been growing their cloud footprints. From private clouds, to massive deployments on hyperscale environments, today’s reality is a sprawling ecosystem ranging across private datacentres, virtual environments, and public cloud providers like AWS. Regardless of industry, sector, or size, every business possesses an increasingly complex and widespread cloud ecosystem.
This has given rise to management and orchestration tools, all of which promise to simplify cloud management and reduce costs. Gartner forecasts that by 2025, the percentage of enterprises using multifaceted cloud governance tools will be more than 70%, compared to less than 10% in 2020.
However, simply plugging a cloud management platform (CMP) into the business has not – and will not – achieve the desired results. “More than 90 vendors offer cloud management functionality (that is, a tool that satisfies at least one or a few of the functional cloud management areas). However, a smaller number offers CMP functionality (that is, a solution that addresses most of the required cloud management functionality). This wide diversity makes it tough to map your requirements to the right product. You need to define your requirements and select only products that meet your needs. Don’t immediately assume you need a CMP if a single or limited function cost management or security tool would be better,” Gartner’s analysts point out.
While this is true to some extent, in reality, most businesses require a way not only to better manage their cloud ecosystems, but a way to get granular visibility and insight into every area of that ecosystem. What every company needs, in fact, is to go beyond orchestration and move to true optimisation.
What cloud users, whether they are the techies or the business users, want is true interoperability. This goes beyond simple cloud API compatibility to handling different behaviours across different cloud providers, and, most importantly, a single place to access all of the cloud apps and functionality the business uses. Virtual networks don’t behave the same across clouds, and neither do storage volumes. Or snapshots. A simple API translation tool won’t cut it, nor will a management platform that doesn’t cover all of the clouds out there, including open source and containerized environments.
Similarly, cost optimisation will remain a challenge unless visibility and control is extended throughout a company’s entire cloud estate, down to the granular level. This is where most businesses come unstuck without a next generation managed services provider to help them implement fit-for-purpose solutions. Without the expertise and experience, organisations will not be able to gain the full benefits offered by management and orchestration solutions, and many will have to devote time and money to solve integration challenges.
The same applies to security. There are many orchestration tools that have some elements of security included, but these will not fulfil all of a company’s security needs. The right partner will ensure that any gaps in security are highlighted and remedied, and that regulatory requirements, for example, PCI DSS and PoPI compliance, are met at all times.
When evaluating cloud orchestration solutions, companies should look for the ability to create, provision, monitor and manage all their different cloud services, with one portal providing access to whatever they need. With the right partner in place, together with a comprehensive cloud management solution, companies can go beyond orchestration to optimisation.
