Thomas Lee, Senior Product Manager, Equinix Asia Pacific
Today, cloud computing is the primary driver of business and digital transformation. That’s why, businesses that want to achieve greater agility, faster time-to-market, and significant cost savings have realised that a single cloud platform is not sufficient. They are increasingly turning to multicloud strategies.
With multicloud services from different providers, organisations can tailor their technology solutions to meet specific needs, avoid vendor lock-in, and optimise resource allocation. This approach not only fosters innovation and flexibility but also enables organisations to respond swiftly to market changes and customer demands.
Over the years, many enterprises have implemented cloud solutions ad-hoc or by circumstance.
These conventional multicloud implementations lack a clear strategy and often rely on networking architectures that can lead to subpar application performance, inefficient network resource utilisation, and poor user experiences, undermining the very advantages that multicloud aims to deliver.
At a recent Equinix webinar, Get Multicloud Right, conducted in partnership with iTNews Asia, Thomas Lee, Senior Product Manager, Equinix Asia Pacific said addressing three key complexities around a multicloud strategy can help organisations achieve their business outcomes.
First, he said, is the absence of cross-cloud connectivity options. This forces organisations to use default networking tools or the public internet, which can be less effective.
Second is the competition among cloud providers, which makes it difficult to build an effective multicloud network.
The third challenge, Lee said, is the shortage of skilled professionals in cloud architecture and planning. This hinders building effective multicloud networks.
How PaoBank made multicloud networking simple and manageable
Joining the webinar to discuss an effective multicloud networking strategy was PAOBank’s Chief Technology Officer, Kenneth Chua. The digital bank is a member of a larger insurance company providing banking services to small and medium enterprises. The bank is working with Equinix to implement multicloud networking to better manage resources and achieve operational efficiency in delivering exceptional customer service.
Chua said multicloud networking has enabled the bank to connect their different cloud environments, including SaaS offerings, in a simple and manageable way.
Digital banking often requires bringing together connected systems across different platforms, digitising business processes and ensuring they are always-on. To improve the digital banking experience for their SME customers, PAOBank’s multicloud approach involved migrating from the bank’s existing infrastructure to a primary public cloud and a secondary public cloud to de-risk from a single cloud service provider and deliver a more consistent banking experience.
Chua said the collaboration with Equinix has been helpful during the multicloud strategy implementation, especially when there were delays in hardware delivery, as PAOBank could subscribe to Equinix’s software appliance services to keep the project on track.
Developing a sustainable AI strategy
AI and automation are also driving the growth of cloud networking and infrastructure modernisation. Cloud platforms need to be integrated with AI so that businesses are smarter, more efficient, and more secure.
With a structured approach and AI strategy, Equinix’ Lee said organisations can ensure optimal performance and cost optimisation in their multi-cloud environment.
He encourages enterprises to implement measures to comply with data sovereignty and other regulatory requirements, especially when using public cloud services.
“The key is to take a holistic approach that balances the benefits of AI with the need to protect sensitive data and comply with regulations in a multicloud setting. By doing so, enterprises can develop a sustainable AI strategy that unlocks the full potential of multicloud,” Lee said.
He also recommends “careful planning” of the multicloud networking strategy and not just focusing on applications and workloads.
Organisations must ensure they choose a multicloud networking solution that is cloud and carrier neutral—with a large ecosystem and global coverage—to achieve optimal performance. Additionally, partnering with providers that offer hybrid services and can support seamless multicloud adoption is key to executing effective multicloud strategies.