It’s no secret that cloud outages have affected all major tech companies in 2022, disrupting services for millions of customers. Apple had two major worldwide outages in the first quarter of 2022: a major iCloud outage in January, followed by an outage that affected 20+ services in March. Google’s traffic director tool experienced a similar outage this spring, and in June, Microsoft experienced a massive outage that lasted several hours.
Ongoing issues with IT and cloud infrastructure and frequent outages from the “Big Three” (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) cloud providers beg the question: in light of increased digital transformation in virtually every area of tech and business, how can we re-think cloud infrastructure? How can companies build and maintain their own reliable cloud infrastructures and reduce their reliance on the “Big Three”? If companies are reliant upon the Big Three, which are experiencing no shortage of issues, how can they be sure that the cloud infrastructure they’re using is reliable?
Why companies are frustrated with the current cloud infrastructure
Public cloud infrastructure relies heavily on a virtualized environment, which provides an extension of the company’s own IT infrastructure. This allows the company to host certain aspects of its infrastructure and services on an offsite virtual server. These computing services are offered by third-party providers and take place over the public internet, which means anyone can purchase them. Customers can pay on-demand, per use, by storage, or for whatever bandwidth they consume. The cloud service provider is responsible for management and maintenance, so when large-scale outages happen, the provider is expected to fix them.
This poses difficulty for companies using third-party providers, as outages are impossible to predict, and companies have no control over the processes to resolve them. They must rely upon the third-party provider, oftentimes stalling multiple business processes until the issue is fixed. For example, during the Microsoft outage earlier this year, companies couldn’t send or receive emails, use calendar functions, or use the search function without a series of delays and errors. This outage lasted about 16 hours and resulted in stalled operations for thousands of businesses that were kept in the dark about the outage.
Coupled with these tech issues and outages is the customer’s demand for a better digital experience to support a decentralized workforce. In a post-pandemic world, customer expectations are high, and they will no longer accept excuses for lagging tech stacks and cloud infrastructure.
Companies are re-evaluating and customizing IT investments
In the face of tightened purse strings and major outages in 2022 alone, there is increased conversation around diversifying cloud infrastructure—and for good reason. Diversifying infrastructure can help cut costs and boost productivity.
Walmart recently announced the deployment of one of the largest hybrid clouds in the world, along with an expansion of its cloud capabilities. This improvement allows them to switch seamlessly between third-party cloud providers and their own servers, saving the company 10 to 18% on cloud costs annually and reducing their dependence on tech giants. This digital transformation will allow them to better serve customers during peak website traffic times, such as the holiday season.
This custom software will allow it to run all back-end operations across any cloud system and create a hybrid network using its internal system and Microsoft and Google’s technologies. This will enable them to draw upon the most stable provider at any given moment. If there is an outage with one provider, they can simply switch to another. This is a prominent example of a company creating its own network and venturing away from the Big Three (who currently hold 65% of the cloud infrastructure market). Walmart is perhaps one of the largest consumer brands taking more control over their cloud systems.
What this means for the cloud industry
This shift from public cloud to multi- or hybrid-cloud infrastructure enables companies to own their tech and build their own data centers, increasing reliability. The growth of this model means expanded opportunities for businesses, but it doesn’t come without its own complexities.
While building and optimizing data centers means more independence for companies, using a multi- or hybrid-cloud infrastructure means more moving parts, which can increase the margin for error. A complex multi-cloud system still needs specialized IT staff to operate effectively and handle potential outages, just like any other system. Partnering with an IT and cloud services solutions company decreases the risk of issues caused by outages. It also helps companies manage their multi-cloud system to ensure business operations run seamlessly.
Companies like Calian offer IT and cyber solutions for businesses looking to optimize their IT and cloud infrastructure but need help decreasing risks due to outages or other tech issues. Additionally, Calian works closely with customers to determine which part of their operations should be cloud-native, which should be hybrid, and which are best kept on the premises. This ensures custom solutions versus a one-size-fits-all approach.
As our workforce and our businesses become dynamic and flexible, so should cloud providers. While the cloud industry has seen many challenges over the last several years, the number of technological advancements should be encouraging for businesses looking to move their cloud infrastructure away from large providers like Microsoft and Google and toward a hybrid system.
