Multicloud means the use of multiple private, public, and hybrid clouds for applications and infrastructure. Its adoption is often not planned, but industry analysts agree that enterprises need to embrace, rather than restrict its use. In many cases, Multicloud is being adopted due to varying requirements from business units, or compelling cost benefits associated with a specific cloud provider in a region.

Multicloud Adoption

The consistent approach that Coevolve hears from enterprises is that the traditional approach for the Wide Area Network does not work in this Multicloud model.

What’s expected of the enterprise WAN in a Multicloud environment?

It all starts with the underlay

Maximize provider choice

Leverage the best-performing providers at each location on the network

Optimize for bandwidth – demand will continue to rise in a Multicloud environment

More edge intelligtence

Everything looks the same to a traditional router network – HTTPS traffic to external IPs

Need to be able to differentiate between critical business apps and lower priority traffic

Not just transactional traffic – even demanding real-time traffic is moving to the cloud

CSPs offer new architectures

The ‘center of gravity’ of enterprise WANs is moving away from on-premises data centers

Cloud environments are no longer considered as spokes, but an integral part of the environment

Cloud providers offering more products to keep the traffic on their backbones – Azure Virtual WAN, AWS Transit Gateway, etc.

Integrated security is required

Backhauling traffic is no longer viable when it represents 80%+ of the usage of the WAN

Users expect to be able to operate everywhere with the same functionality – not just in the office environment

Zero-trust model looks increasingly viable for more enterprises

Cloud providers are changing the WAN topology

For many enterprises, the ‘center of gravity’ of the WAN is moving toward cloud providers. New models are emerging to leverage Cloud Provider backbones to replace inter-region MPLS connectivity. Automation options available including API-based integration with several SD-WAN vendors. There are some challenges with this model, particularly relating to consumption model – usage-based vs. traditional fixed cost for circuits.

Addressing security in the layered enterprise WAN

The WAN must be able to provide the right level of control and filtering for each type of traffic. An emerging ‘best practices’ set of functionality for integrating security and the WAN is called ‘Secure Access Service Edge’, or SASE. This allows for the best mix of edge functionality and cloud-scale services to address security as an integral part of the network.

SD-WAN as the intelligent edge

Several key trends are emerging:

  • SD-WAN provides the abstraction layer between the underlay and overlay – use any underlay, and design the network at the overlay layer
  • Application-level and user-level policy management is critical for traffic classification, prioritization and steering
  • Advanced analytics help identify trends and anomalies in the network, even in complex Multicloud environments
  • Local compute is increasingly important in more industry verticals as enterprises seek to reduce remote site footprint

A new model for the Multicloud core

Many enterprises now recognize that the traditional approach to building backbone networks is simply not fit for purpose in a Multicloud environment. Coevolve sees completely new models emerging, particularly from Coevolve’s Multicloud technology partner, Alkira.

Alkira provides a global, on-demand Multicloud network that can securely connect workloads and users across multiple cloud service providers and between geographical reasons. In addition, Alkira offers an on-demand network services marketplace to add additional services into the Multicloud platform. End to end visibility of the entire Multicloud environment is now possible with this solution, unlike traditional fragmented approaches.

Coevolve looks forward to continuing to partner with Alkira to extend its Multicloud capabilities to additional global enterprises.