Networking in The Era of Multi-Cloud Computing

Yo, fellow ninja! The cloud is not going away anytime soon, and many companies have already moved some of their workloads to the cloud. If your company has not done so, you are missing out on reduced costs, increased productivity, and better flexibility when managing enterprise applications. But moving to the cloud is not only about technology; it is also about the business of IT.

We need to stop thinking of IT as just a cost center and start thinking of it as an enabler that can generate revenue and drive business value. One way to do this is through networking services, and the key here is to provide those services in a cloud-first fashion.

A multi-cloud strategy requires the ability to seamlessly move workloads between different environments, including public clouds and private data centers. This strategy requires a high level of trust between cloud providers and their customers, which can be achieved with robust security and processes on both ends. The network is the foundation for this trust: security standards and transport protocols tend to be consistent across providers to support interoperability.

In the past, networks were much more static, and applications ran on them. But today's cloud environments are software-defined by default, and applications have a global reach. This dynamism means that networking must be agile, reliable, secure, and automated so that you can quickly deploy new applications without having to worry about any of the overhead associated with configuration management tasks.

Technical Challenges of Monitoring Multi Cloud Networks 

Multi-cloud environments present unique technical challenges for network monitoring, particularly in terms of data collection, analysis, and visualization. Here are some of the technical challenges of multi-cloud network monitoring:

Data Collection:

The first challenge is collecting data from all the different cloud providers and platforms in your environment. Each cloud provider has its own set of APIs and data formats, which can make it difficult to collect data in a consistent and reliable manner. Additionally, some cloud providers may have restrictions on the types of data that can be collected or the frequency at which it can be collected, making it difficult to get a comprehensive view of your environment.

Data Analysis:

Once you have collected the data, the next challenge is analyzing it to identify trends and potential issues. Multi-cloud environments generate a massive amount of data, and it can be challenging to identify meaningful patterns or insights without the right tools and techniques. Furthermore, different cloud providers may use different metrics and performance indicators, making it difficult to compare performance across providers.

Visualization:

The final challenge is visualizing the data in a way that is meaningful and actionable. Multi-cloud environments can be complex, with many moving parts and interdependencies, making it difficult to identify the root cause of performance issues or outages. Effective visualization tools are critical to identifying these issues and taking corrective action.

Tools to help overcome these challenges

To overcome these challenges, multi-cloud network monitoring requires a robust set of tools and techniques. These may include:

Cloud-Specific Monitoring Tools:

Many cloud providers offer their own monitoring tools that are designed to collect and analyze data from their specific platforms. These tools can be integrated into a larger monitoring framework to provide a comprehensive view of your entire environment.

Cloud-Agnostic Monitoring Tools:

Cloud-agnostic monitoring tools can collect and analyze data from multiple cloud providers, providing a more holistic view of your environment. These tools can be customized to meet the specific needs of your organization and can be integrated with other monitoring tools and dashboards.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence:

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) can help identify patterns and anomalies in your data, providing insights that may be difficult to identify using traditional monitoring techniques. These technologies can be used to detect performance issues before they become critical and to predict potential issues before they occur.

Real-Time Monitoring and Alerting:

Real-time monitoring and alerting are critical for identifying and responding to performance issues and outages. By monitoring your environment in real-time and setting up automated alerts, you can proactively identify and address issues before they impact your users.

Conclusion

In conclusion, multi-cloud network monitoring presents unique technical challenges that require a comprehensive set of tools and techniques to overcome. By leveraging cloud-specific and cloud-agnostic monitoring tools, machine learning and AI, and real-time monitoring and alerting, organizations can gain greater visibility into their multi-cloud environments and ensure that their applications and services are running smoothly and efficiently.

Networking issues and intricacy can impact all areas of business operations. A multi cloud environment means three layers of complexity - on-premises IT resources, private clouds, and public clouds - more than twice as many as a traditional network. But with agile networking solutions, you can operate in both public and private clouds simultaneously, easily migrate workloads from one location to another as needed, and keep control over your application performance.