Unlocking the Cloudscape with Arun Pattanayak

In the latest episode of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to IT” podcast, listeners are taken on an enlightening journey through the complex realm of modern IT management and multi-cloud adoption.

The episode features a distinguished guest, Arun Pattanayak, a technical specialist at Microsoft and a keynote speaker in the fields of data and AI. Together, Michelle and Arun explore the vast potential and challenges of multi-cloud solutions, offering valuable insights for IT enthusiasts, professionals, and decision-makers.

Arun begins by highlighting the technical benefits of multi-cloud adoption, emphasizing its ability to provide scalability and eliminate the risk of vendor lock-in. He underlines how organizations can leverage multiple cloud providers to meet their specific needs and ensure business continuity.

The conversation then shifts to the technical challenges associated with multi-cloud adoption, such as the lack of standardized APIs and the complexity of managing services from different providers. Arun sheds light on the business benefits of multi-cloud, including enhanced business continuity, cost optimization, and access to cutting-edge features.

Arun provides practical advice for organizations considering a multi-cloud strategy, emphasizing the importance of focusing on their unique business requirements and SLA needs. He encourages businesses to evaluate cloud providers based on these criteria.

The episode also introduces emerging technologies that streamline multi-cloud management, allowing organizations to gain better control and efficiency in their IT operations.

This episode of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to IT” podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the intricate world of multi-cloud adoption, offering a wealth of expert insights and practical guidance. Subscribe now for more captivating discussions and visit Device42.com for additional information.

Welcome to another episode of hitchhiker’s Guide to IT podcast. Brought to you by Device42. On this show, we explore the ins and outs of modern IT management and the infinite expanse of its universe. Whether you’re an expert in the data center or cloud or just someone interested in the latest trends in IT technology. Hitchhiker’s Guide to IT is your go to source for all things IT. So buckle up and get ready to explore the ever changing landscape of modern IT management.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

Hello, and welcome to the hitchhiker’s Guide to IT podcast series. It is brought to you by Device42.. I am your host Michelle Dawn Moody, and today we’re talking about unlocking the cloudscape; navigating the benefits and the challenges of multi-cloud. And we have a very special guest today. Arun Pattanayak is the technical specialist at Microsoft. He is also a keynote speaker on data and AI. So perfect for the topic at hand. Arun, thank you so much for joining us today.

(Guest: Arun Pattanayak)

Yes. Thanks, Michelle. Thanks for introducing me. I am a technical specialist at Microsoft. I exclusively work within the financial services, and I specialize in Azure, data and AI. Looking forward to our talk today.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

As am I, and we really have a lot to get to. And this is such a great topic because There’s so much technology out there. There’s a lot of really good technology, and sometimes we need a few layers of that technology. So we’re gonna talk about, as we said, the benefits and challenges of multi-cloud. So let’s start here. What are the technical benefits of going multi cloud?

(Guest: Arun Pattanayak)

The whole point of cloud is that you are offloading the responsibility of managing your virtual machines or your data servers to a third party. So you focus on your business use case, your applications and not the maintainability of the infrastructure underneath. And with that, one of the main reasons why people look to the cloud is that, you know, pretty soon they feel like their applications have outgrown the limitation of the data center that they have. Or the data center requires a hardware refresh that they would, you know, rather not do or it’s too expensive. Cloud has a business model of consumption. So you pay for use, and you always get the latest of everything. But with that, the cloud itself is a data center. So it’s, you are offering the responsibility to another vendor who owns the data center, and they offer it to you as cloud. But under the hood, they are still using data center. And when you are trying to scale most of the major cloud providers like Azure or AWS or like, they have a lot of data centers, but there is still a limit to how many they have, and they all keep opening data centers. But, of course, the demand is, a lot more than for them to keep up. If business is large enough, and they really want disaster recovery. They really want business continuity. Sometimes it might be good for

them to not rely on only one cloud provider and have their applications and data replicated on multiple cloud providers. So in case one cloud provider, one data center is having a problem, they could switch to the same application and the same type of data in another cloud provider. So that gives them a scalability beyond what a single cloud provider can provide. That’s, you know, one of the primary reasons why people look to multi cloud. And the other reason is, of course, it’s vendor lock-in. If if you put, you know, use one, cloud provider as your only provider, then, you know, you have to use what they have if some other cloud provider has something else that you want to take advantage of, you might be limited there or, you know, over time, you might find that, you know, this cloud provider is getting expensive. But you don’t have an easy way to switch, but if you have your application data replicated across multiple clouds, then you know, you can anytime downsize one and, you know, move stuff to another, more easily rather than having to start from scratch.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

Yeah. It kinda gives you the best of both worlds or multi worlds, so to speak. But you don’t consistently have to shop around because as you said, that can be really time consuming in this way. You kind of have your foot in a few different places and it’s much easier to navigate accordingly. So we’ve talked about the benefits which clearly there are a lot of benefits there. But what are the technical challenges of multi cloud?

(Guest: Arun Pattanayak)

Cloud tries to use a native API based way to manage. But, you know, as these things are getting created, so fast, most of the vendors come up with their own APIs and their own way of doing things. The industry hasn’t yet gotten together to create a generic framework, a standardized API for all of this. So as a result, that vendor lock-in issue is kind of still there for cloud that, you know, if you use one cloud provider’s API, it works in a certain way. Another cloud provider, you know, works in another way. So now if you are multi cloud, but your application owner is still the same. They now have to know the multiple APIs of all these different clouds. They have to know how their application is deployed in each cloud. So on one cloud provider, the service might be called something, it might work in a certain way. Another cloud provider, it might work in another way. It might use a different protocol, different API But your application owner now has to know the how each of these work and be able to manage across the cloud in a way that, you know, your application is not disrupted, and you are still able to take the best advantage of what that specific, cloud vendor has to offer and that can be challenging.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

You briefly talked about, you know, being a part of several entities to make it easier to downsize with one or maybe upgrade with another because they do all offer different things. And sometimes you don’t wanna miss out on what one company is offering. So with that, let’s talk about switching from the technical side to the actual business benefits. Can you kind of lay them out for us the business benefits of going multi cloud?

(Guest: Arun Pattanayak)

The benefit to business is, you know, twofold. The first is the business continuity aspect of it, which is like You know, if you use multiple cloud, then you have access to a lot more data centers than you would, from a single cloud provider. So you now have your data and your application replicated across a lot of many data centers. So, if one data center for one cloud goes down, you are able to switch to another one. That’s number one. Number two is, you know, you can, you can, take advantage of newer features if, you know, one cloud provider came up with something new that you want to take advantage of. You can, and, you know, the other advantage is the cost advantage. Right? Having multiple clouds kind of gives you a better negotiating power that you can and, you know, talk to your cloud provider. Look, the other cloud provider is giving you this much. You know, if you’re not give me that deal, I’m going to switch there. Right? So, that power of negotiation plus the power to use the latest of any cloud provider at any time. Plus, having a lot of options to, you know, do your application and data application to improve business continuity. Those are, you know, the primary advantages for a business.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

So switching gears now because clearly it could be very beneficial to be involved with several kinds of entities there, there are also some challenges. So let’s talk about that. What are the business challenges with multi cloud?

(Guest: Arun Pattanayak)

Each of the cloud services. I mean, depending on what type of industry you are in, there are regulations. For example, a Fedram certification is kind of a must on most of the cloud services. Right? The security implementation is slightly different in different clouds. So as, you know, depending which industry you are in, you might have a set of compliance requirements, a set of controls that need to be implemented in a certain way for you to be able to use a cloud service so that it’s approved by regulators and it meets your, company guideline, but different cloud providers implement security in different way. Now it’s up to you to work with the cloud provider to make sure the compliance that you are trying to meet, the security requirements that you have for your application within your organization are implemented using the particular, set of technology that the cloud provider has, and your policy is same no matter which cloud you use, but the implementation can be different. So you have to ensure that implementation is done in a way that it’s, you know, still applies to your company compliance policy. That’s number one. Number two is, you know, We talk about having multiple cloud makes it easy to kind of switch between. I mean, yeah. So if you have an API, that you have multiple URL. So you can switch from one URL in one cloud to another URL in another cloud. But in terms of data, like, companies are using petabytes of data. It’s not practical. It’s not really easy to just move petabytes of data from one cloud provider to another cloud provider, you know, within seconds, most people even, you know, sip out data in boxes, and it takes days over a week to copy that amount of data because people do that manually because, that way, it’s it’s actually faster than, you know, over the wire where the bandwidth might be slow. Right? And plus the security If you are keeping the network connectivity open for a longer time, you are, you know, exposing it to a

threat for outside attack for a longer time. So that is a challenge or data portability is not as easy as, you know, application or API portability.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

Yeah. And there is so much data out there. I mean, when you even think personally, you know, let’s not talk business for a minute, but think of our phones. I don’t know about you Arun, but just the amount of videos and pictures that I have in my phone, and that’s an individual person, but we’re talking about companies. There is so much data that they have to keep track of. So let me ask you this. People are listening to this podcast. Maybe they’re not multi-cloud or maybe they’re kind of just on the verge or just, you know, have one or two things in the mix. What would you say to them? Where do they start and what are some key things that they need to keep in mind as they kind of go on this journey?

(Guest: Arun Pattanayak)

There are a lot of new technologies coming up. There are a lot of new entrants into the cloud. I mean, the big ones, like Azure AWS are there, but, you know, a lot of the SaaS companies are coming up with their own cloud, and it can be overwhelming. What I would say to most organizations is, you know, don’t look outside. Don’t look at what people are coming up with. Right? Look at your business. Right? So it should be about you. What is your business? What type of applications do you have? What is the SLA that your application needs to meet? You know, it really comes down to, if your application is supporting a set of customers, what is your contract with those customers? What does, you know, your SLA that, you know, you are going to offer this application with this much uptime or you are going to offer them this data with this much latency. So the technical specifications that you have, that you have to meet, that’s your primary driver. Which cloud you use is secondary, which type of service you use is secondary. You start from what you need to keep your business running today, to make a business competitive and resilient in the future. You start with your set of requirements irrespective of whether that exists today or not. Once you identify your own requirement, then you start evaluating different cloud providers’ technology against what you need. And that’s how you kind of decide how many clouds. Maybe you don’t need ten clouds. Maybe one cloud might be enough. There are a lot of customers who are hundred percent on one cloud because their SLA requirements are not that high on almost every cloud, major cloud providers, they offer geo redundant replication. They have data centers all across the world. So you could replicate your data across the world, even if you are sticking to just one cloud provider. Right? Or if you do need another cloud to really make it more resilient, it should start with how much resiliency do you really need, and are you willing to, you know, take up the headache of having to manage an extra cloud. Do you have the resources? How would your operations work? You know, so it should start with you. What you need and what you can handle.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

I think that’s such an important point that you made because it’s really not one size fits all. And as you said, if one cloud is working for you, then, you know, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. We’ve heard of that old saying, but you know, clearly if a company is looking to kind of add to that, then you’ve given them some great advice. Any final closing thoughts before we wrap up here?

(Guest: Arun Pattanayak)

Yeah. There are newer technologies coming up, these days where you can unify the cloud management, multi cloud, and your on prem, in a single panel so that you can manage your resources across, different cloud and your on prem from, using that single portal. So, no matter which cloud you are using, the way you provision resources and you know, securee resources are kind of uniform across. And as the industry matures, that generalization is happening And there are partners, you know, different companies are coming up with a way to make that multi cloud management easier. So I would say no, start researching those technologies and, you know, if you want to be multi-cloud, it’s worth investing in that type of technology.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)
For those people out there who may have questions, or they’re looking for more resources, can

you send them anywhere, Arun? (Guest: Arun Pattanayak)

Yes. You know, Microsoft has, you know, a documentation on the multi cloud strategy. So Microsoft Learn is one of the places that people can learn about Azure and, you know, different ways that a lot of the Microsoft products are geared towards managing multi-cloud.Definitely, that’s a first, source to look at. And Of course, you know, if you have any specific questions, you know, you can email me. My website is arunasupattanayak.com. So connect with me and message me. I would be happy to talk to you.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

Arun Pattanayak, I cannot thank you enough. You’re a technical specialist at Microsoft keynote speaker on data and AI, and I really appreciate your time, and I know the listeners do as well because it’s really important information that you’re putting out there and some great tips and guidelines. So thank you for being here today.

(Guest: Arun Pattanayak) Thank you for inviting me.

(Host: Michelle Dawn Mooney)

And I want to thank all of you for tuning in and listening to the hitchhiker’s Guide to IT podcast series brought to you by Device42. And of course, if you would like to hear more engaging conversations like the one you heard today with Arun, we would invite you to subscribe to the podcast, and you can visit Device42.com for more information there as well. Thanks again for joining us. Once again, I’m your host Michelle Dawn Mooney, and we hope to see you on another podcast. Soon.