The Compelling Case for Cloud Agnostics

Cloud agnostics give an organization freedom of choice which often streamlines operations, but is the solution suitable for your needs?

You want your core services to remain fail-safe. Worldwide, 91% of companies have embraced cloud computing with a monumental shift from on-premises IT services to cloud-first tech that is impressively agile. However, companies are not always monogamous. Many go with numerous cloud providers – a strategic process known as cloud agnostic deployment.

On December 7th, 2021, the streaming platforms of Netflix, Disney+, Robinhood, and Amazon.com Inc’s eCommerce site were brought to their knees when services were knocked out. The mobile banking app Chime, Amazon’s Ring security cameras, and iRobot, which all depend on Amazon Web Services, also concurrently suffered problems. The outages were believed to be linked to application programming interface and network device issues. However, the impact was long-reaching and drives home the importance of considering cloud agnostics.

Let’s examine how to choose the best cloud agnostic deployment solution.

Cloud computing comprises services such as storage virtual and software machines provided by third-party vendors over the internet. A few primary cloud providers include Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure.

Using cloud agnostic solutions, you enjoy greater flexibility. If you start to run out of storage, your public cloud solution strategy ensures that you're automatically scaled up so your business doesn't miss a beat.

Organizations have the ability to run their workloads and various applications in any public cloud setup or a variety of cloud services. With cloud agnostic deployment, you can quickly do an about-face and switch to another cloud provider without any major disruption. You can base your choices on regions, offerings, price, and more.

Cloud Agnostic Creates Freedom

The over-reliance on the services or products of a single vendor is referred to as vendor lock-in. It leaves an organization vulnerable to price increases, changes, and discontinuations. In some situations, the company or operations might end up being completely halted. Vendor lock-in fears are why you should never put all of your eggs in one basket.

Even if one public cloud provider meets your needs financially, with performance, functionalities, and reliability, it is still unwise to depend on them solely in such a changing environment. If the house of cards should start to fall, you need to constantly build your infrastructure and applications so you can quickly switch and adapt to change. With cloud agnostic solutions, you can safeguard your company’s operations.

Cloud agnostics provides you with choices!

 “Organizations leverage almost five different cloud platforms on average”. – hostingtribunal.com, Cloud Adoption Statistics for 2020.

Choosing the Best Cloud Agnostic Solution

Embracing a cloud agnostic solution gives you the freedom to build and deploy your applications so they can run on a multitude of cloud platforms.

If you are seeking the best cloud agnostic solution for your business, here are a few key strategies that you’ll want to consider:

• Use a managed database service. Most public cloud offerings provide managed database installs, management, maintenance, and database access. Google, Microsoft Azure, and AWS are all acceptable choices for migration between providers when creating a cloud agnostic solution. Keep in mind the underlying database technologies, some database services (example AWS DynamoDB) are not compatible outside the AWS environment. Using databases that rely on open-source databases like PostgreSQL/MySQL provide portability and are worth consideration.

• Open Container Initiative (OCI), RedHat CoreOS Rkt, Docker,” and Kubernetes are container technologies. The software units package source code for easy and safe transportation between cloud environments. The containers can quickly launch on virtually any platform without further host environment customization. Containerization coupled with orchestrated cloud-agnostic media helps you avoid vendor lock-in.
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• Automate regular tasks such as performance management, monitoring, logging, and application deployment, which are naturally very time-consuming. However, delegating the tasks into a multi-cloud environment through automation makes each function easier, which frees up valuable time.

• Create a migration solution of on-premises workloads to a cloud platform. The process is complicated and requires several skills sets and resources to conduct the time-consuming process. With a multi-cloud environment, you have to migrate across the various cloud platforms.
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Cloud-Native Vs. Cloud Agnostic

Without a doubt, many view the cloud agnostic approach as the wave of the future. It is a way to avoid being locked in by a specific vendor. You’ll enjoy more meaningful choices and more flexibility. The ability to use multiple cloud vendors helps you avoid built-in redundancies, which makes it a critical necessity for core services.

Despite the many paybacks of cloud agnostics, some organizations benefit from a cloud native approach. Specific applications have been designed to use a single cloud platform to run efficiently.

When considering cloud native vs. cloud agnostic, you should examine these three elements:

1. Security and Compliance: Cloud-native applications have been designed and built focusing on the cloud provider. They rely on the provider’s API for the security and compliance features. In such situations, cloud agnostic applications make things complicated. The APIs between the various cloud providers are different, so your application might not work the same or between the various cloud providers. If you cannot effectively use the application’s built-in features, you’ll need to take the extra step to ensure security and compliance.
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2. Integration Coupled with Portability: Some vendors provide remarkably similar services, but others cater to specializations such as government hosting or HIPAA. Using a cloud agonistic application gives you the ability to pick and choose between the services offered by each vendor. A cloud-native architecture only helps with integration and portability if the cloud-native application was not built for a particular cloud provider but the cloud in general.
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3. Monitoring Importance: A cloud-native solution makes it easier for a business to use the provided monitoring solution of the cloud vendor. If you opt to use a cloud agnostic solution, you should not rely on a single cloud provider’s monitoring solution when using multiple platforms. You want to invest in monitoring software to let you know if there is a problem with the platform. Open-source monitoring solutions hosted by many cloud providers must be used for cloud agnostic monitoring.
   
   

Making the Provider Choice

Nothing is perfect - not even cloud agnostics. Yes, many see it as the future wave, and there are benefits. However, you’ll also want to be overly cautious about the potential drawbacks of a cloud agnostic solution. Sure, you don’t want to be locked into a single vendor, so that’s why it's so alluring to go with a cloud agnostic answer, but nothing is perfect – especially in the ever-evolving world of tech.

With a cloud agnostic strategy, you are not locked into a single service which is appealing for those who don’t want to feel tied to one vendor. Still, you are locked into several services even if they are transferable across many cloud providers. You might not be able to take full advantage of the benefits of each of the providers, which can slow down your team and might even give your competition an edge.

In many cases, a cloud provider might have a crucial feature important to your application. Still, you can’t use it because it's not available in a cloud agnostic approach if the other cloud providers also don’t have the same feature. If your competition is still using a cloud-native approach, they can often take advantage of the feature you cannot utilize.

Data transfer costs can also become expensive with a cloud agnostic approach. Sometimes you’ll face unexpected data transfer fees, which are often confusing and impossible to predict. For many organizations, using multiple cloud providers is costly and does not fit their budgets.

You’ll want to take the time to examine your organization’s needs to determine if a multi-service approach with a cloud native is more beneficial to your particular needs than a cloud agnostic choice. In some situations, using a single cloud provider and building their application lets you truly take advantage of the provided services instead of multiple vendors.

Pros and Cons of Cloud Agnostics‍

Cloud agnostics is helpful for most businesses. Some businesses might not want to use cloud agnostics exclusively, but they want it in their list of tools. Wherever your organization falls on the spectrum, you’ll want to weigh the pros and cons of cloud agnostics before you make a firm decision.

Pros of Cloud Agnostics

There are a lot of advantages to using cloud agnostics, especially if you have a medium to large organization.

The Many Clouds Agnostic Tools

Cloud technology is ever-evolving. Right now, it's a great idea, but in a few years, things might change. Tying your organization to a single cloud solution for an extended period for many organizations using cloud-native is not wise. Cloud agnostic tools let you operate on any platform so you can regularly examine your current situation and change if necessary. The flexibility is ideal as better options are rolled out. If you opt to use cloud native apps, you are often stuck when emerging technologies appear. Using cloud agnostics lets you embrace the latest technologies.

Scale When Needed

You can scale far easier with cloud agnostics than with cloud native apps, which use only a single cloud platform. Cloud agnostics lets you move apps to several servers with ease and rapid fashion. Put your tools on private or public cloud platforms or operate them from an on-premises server. The chances are that your competitors will structure to meet increased demands, but you’ll be able to scale obstacles when you encounter them with ease.

It’s All About Freedom

By now, you probably know that the most significant benefit of cloud agnostics is freedom. You take control of your tools, and you can tailor them with the features you need. If you cannot locate an existing application for your business, you can develop a customized cloud application.

Lower Costs

Every business cares about its bottom line. Cloud agnostic strategies let you lower long-term costs without forfeiting data efficiency. You can move from platform to platform if there is a better deal. If you are not using all of the tools provided by one cloud platform, you can switch to cut costs.

Greater Reliability

When you spread workloads across several cloud platforms, then you’ll avoid downtime and potential redundancy if problems occur. It gives you greater peace of mind due to added reliability.

Cons of Cloud Agnostics

No technology is perfect or suited for every organization. You’ll want to closely examine the particular technology to determine if it fits your needs and is worth investing in. As they always say, one size does not fit all. What works well for one business might not function as well for your company. You’ll need to weigh the pros and cons, plus try to look ahead at your future needs. Tech changes rapidly, and what works today might fail tomorrow.

High Upfront Costs

Yes, cloud technology does have the potential to save you money over time, but initially, you will face higher upfront costs as you develop and deploy the applications. You also might not use out-of-the-box tools and will instead require other unique features, which adds to the price due to the extra time needed by the development team. Speeding up development can help to lower your costs and is worth consideration if budgeting is essential. Lyrid effectively helps alleviate these issues with their cloud agnostic automation.

May Not Benefit from All Features

Cloud platforms are often built to excel in particular areas. Look at AWS, which is geared towards the needs of eCommerce businesses. If your organization needs specific features, you might choose it over cloud agnostics. If your team builds an application for one particular platform, it won’t work as well on other platforms. You might not be able to use certain features, making it not a cost-effective option for your needs. You may want to pick a cloud-native option instead in such a situation.

Why Lyrid?

Freeing yourself from single platform dependency is liberating. With Lyrid, you can code, develop, deploy, and manage web applications using native serverless technologies on any cloud vendor without worrying about being locked into a specific one. Instead, you can create a codebase with no public cloud signature, which can then be uploaded to the Lyrid platform, where it is quickly analyzed, packed, and remotely built into various artifacts for deployment on any cloud platform.

All companies need to decide whether or not cloud agnostics will meet their particular needs. If you require flexibility and long-term affordability, then you should consider an agnostic cloud deployment solution for your business tech needs.

We encourage you to contact the team at Lyrid to learn more about our multi-cloud technology services.

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