The multi-cloud era – a faster path forward for enterprises and Managed Services Providers

The era of the multi-cloud landscape is here. CIOs are taking deliberate action by proactively matching workloads and applications with the ideal cloud, and companies are also seeing a proliferation of multi-cloud architectures created by mergers and acquisitions, data sovereignty needs, support for remote work, and shadow IT. This is leading to a multi-cloud approach that is increasingly ubiquitous among the most advanced enterprises.

Nor, according to most IT leaders, is it questioned whether organizations need to embrace a multi-cloud approach. Data shows that 95% of IT executives believe a multi-cloud approach is critical to business success.  Of the nearly 6,000 CIOs, CISOs, and CTOs who shared their insights for VMware’s Multi-Cloud Maturity Index, a global survey conducted by market-research firm Vanson Bourne, more than half believe the stakes are even higher: 53% say organizations that do not adopt a multi-cloud approach risk failure.

Clearly, such agreement demonstrates a multi-cloud approach – one that extends from the edge of the network to software-defined on-premises data centers – is not limited to the large, distributed organizations that only a few years ago were among the first to embrace it. Instead, multi-cloud is now synonymous with business agility across industries and among organizations of virtually every size.

It is a movement that is also accelerating. Respondents also noted that the number of public clouds their organization relies on increased by 69% over the past two years.

Not surprisingly, as with most of the transformative trends shaping how IT infrastructure is shaped and applied, there are opportunities and challenges involved. On the most basic level, the allure of a multi-cloud approach – one that enables organizations not only to match use cases and clouds with ease – but also to effortlessly manage the resulting compute, storage, and networking resources they make available, needs no introduction.

As the index shows, the benefits of such an approach are widely celebrated. Among those surveyed, 95% also said a multi-cloud approach plays a very important or somewhat important role in accelerating time to market. The same percentage saw its value in meeting customer needs, and 94% pointed to its very or somewhat important role in recruiting the best talent – a clear reflection of the importance of remote work today.

There are also challenges. Regrettably, the enthusiasm that led more than a few organizations to quickly adopt a “cloud first” strategy continues to prompt many enterprises to embrace a multi-cloud approach without considering the complexities involved. Not only does each cloud fundamentally require IT teams to manage an entirely new software stack, but each cloud has its own operational and integration requirements and requires different skills – an overwhelming reality for IT teams already spread thin.

This is illustrated by an alarming reality: in addition to showing the value and utility of a multi-cloud approach, the research also shows 70% of those surveyed find themselves in a state of cloud confusion. These leaders lack an architecture to enable them to proactively and effectively address the demands that a multi-cloud approach entails. They are overwhelmed.

Enter the supercloud

IT leaders need an architecture designed from the ground up to address the needs organizations face when embracing a multi-cloud approach. This includes having the ability to manage everything from permissions to provisioning, and the development, testing, and roll-out of cloud-native applications – all at their fingertips regardless of which one of the organization’s clouds are used.

Such an architecture constitutes a “supercloud” that delivers inherent resiliency, virtually unlimited capacity, and compute power the cloud embodies. Just as importantly, this supercloud would deliver the ease of use, security, and peace of mind exemplified by private, on-premise clouds, but with the ability to incorporate and draw on the cumulative capabilities of numerous clouds, from any vendor, with ease.

This supercloud is readily accessible from a trusted and fully vetted partner, one that intimately knows the organization’s business and its infrastructure. Just as importantly, it is built on a foundational architecture created with trusted and proven cloud vendor-agnostic technology known for high performance, ease of use, and ironclad security.

VMware Cross-Cloud managed services make the supercloud a reality

The answer to this need for a “supercloud” begins with a partner. Being independent doesn’t mean being alone.

In fact, VMware has an initiative to provide enterprises with a fast, effective path to their ideal multi-cloud infrastructure that helps to minimize risk through VMware Cross-Cloud managed services. Introduced in April 2023, VMware Cross-Cloud managed services feature a portfolio of highly refined prescriptive services designed to address the most important requirements of organizations embracing a multi-cloud approach.

Delivered through fully vetted partners that benefit from VMware’s singular innovation, product support, and go-to-market-strategy, each provider that offers VMware Cross-Cloud managed services provides the peace of mind that is possible only with partners that have achieved two demanding validations.

All VMware Cross-Cloud Services Providers have earned the VMware Managed Services Specialization (MSS), attained after completing a 2-day interactive session with ISSI, an independent third party that validates their ability to deliver managed services created with VMware technology. Partners must also earn the VMware Validated Solution Offering (VSO) designation to earn the VMware Cross-Cloud managed services badge. They also benefit from VMware’s extensive support while maintaining the freedom to offer customized cloud services that reflect their unique value proposition.

Prescriptive offers provide the multi-cloud confidence a supercloud deserves

VMware Cross-Cloud managed services include prescriptive offers that VMware Cross-Cloud Providers can build on to create bespoke, validated multi-cloud services that feature VMware-validated technical alignment with the most stringent quality, performance, and security standards. They include VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for Hybrid Cloud and VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for Native Public Cloud and Modern Apps.

VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for Hybrid Cloud are designed to help organizations to lower their costs, simplify operations, provide actionable insights, optimize performance, and accelerate cloud migrations. Partners can build on these offers by using VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS) or the new VMware Cloud editions – Essentials, Standard, Pro, Advanced, and Enterprise – that include hyperconverged infrastructure, hyperconverged infrastructure with advanced automation, compute with advanced automation, and VMware Cloud Foundation. Prescriptive offers include:

• VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for private; and
• VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for public cloud

VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for Native Public Cloud and Modern Apps let enterprises automate operations across multiple clouds, centralize management, and better control costs to optimally use all cloud resources. Prescriptive offers include:

• VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for Centralized Governance, powered by;
• VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for Cost Optimization, powered by VMware Aria Cost; and
• VMware Cross-Cloud managed services for Cloud Native App Delivery, powered by VMware Tanzu.

Of course, building a multi-cloud architecture that addresses each organization’s unique needs is only one step in a multi-cloud journey. A common operating tier is crucial not only to effectively deploy multi-cloud, but to manage it and maintain peak performance. To address this, all VMware Cross-Cloud managed services are also supported by VMware Aria, a powerful and unified solution that lets IT manage and optimize multi-cloud environments and the applications within them.

As more organizations realize the benefits of matching the right cloud with the right use cases – from enabling remote work to developing the cloud-native applications used for everything from bringing products and services to market, customer service, and data analytics – more IT leaders will look at how they can begin their multi-cloud journey.  Simultaneously, others will look to address the cloud confusion they face. Fortunately, in both cases they no longer have to proceed alone. With VMware Cross-Cloud managed services a trusted partner with the right solutions is just a call away.

To learn more about VMware Cross-Cloud managed services, see the presentation “Gen AI: An inflection point for securing supercloud infrastructure” at Supercloud 3 or visit VMware’s partner locator to find a verified and validated VMware Cross-Cloud Provider.