Optimizing Cloud Migration

Chapter 5. Phase 4: Maximizing Your Internet Performance: Building a Multicloud Solution

As we have detailed previously, not all cloud vendors are created equal and, despite what they may like you to think, it is not necessary to tie yourself to a single provider. It is a perfectly valid solution to build your system as a jigsaw puzzle of components from multiple cloud providers. Certain cloud providers may provide services that other cloud providers do not—cloud systems are generally designed to be modular and use standard, open formats for communication. In this case, the same precautions should be taken as defined previously.

However, when thinking about Internet performance, the primary advantage of using multiple cloud providers is the locations each one offers relative to your users. It is generally good practice to move your systems as close to users as possible. (As mentioned previously, this does not always directly correlate to physical location but to closest in network hops.)

The monitoring systems defined previously, combined with the discussed performance and cost-optimization metrics, will allow you to determine when it is appropriate to consider moving to multiple cloud providers.

Resilience

Using multiple cloud providers also allows you to have a failover system in place in the event of a major availability issue affecting one of your cloud providers. This solution is dependent on having a fully dynamic DNS provision that allows for very low TTLs on their domain ...