The rise of hybrid IT environments and widespread adoption of multiple clouds for AI, security, and global expansion, coupled with forecasts that enterprise spending on cloud computing infrastructure will surpass $1 trillion for the first time this year, have created a pressing need for organizations to streamline their operations. The supercloud network proposes to do just that.
The term “supercloud” has been floating around for a few years now and is a concept that is gaining significant momentum in cloud networking. While some may dismiss it as just another buzzword in a sea of tech jargon, Supercloud embodies a vision rather than a specific technology like eBPF or WASM. It aims to untangle the intricate web of management complexities that organizations face due to the inherent differences in the tools and APIs required to deploy, operate, and monitor applications and APIs across various cloud platforms.
To understand the importance of the supercloud and its potential value, it is critical to understand both the benefits and pitfalls of multi-cloud deployments.
Distinguished Engineer and F5 Chief Evangelist.
So what exactly is Supercloud?
In my opinion, “Supercloud, at its core, is a cloud architecture that enables hybrid IT to seamlessly operate every layer of the IT stack across different cloud providers, traditional on-premises setups and cloud environments, and at the edge.”
So, to turn this vision into reality, we need to start by addressing the fundamental layer of the IT stack: infrastructure. That’s the connective tissue between the data center and the public cloud – the network layers that make it possible for consumers to consume, clients to call, and packets to move from one place to another. The proposed solution to simplify connectivity is often referred to in the market as a multicloud network, or MCN.
Essentially, multicloud networking simplifies connectivity by standardizing how networks are established and operated across all environments, whether in the public or private cloud, in the data center, or even at the edge. By creating a unified networking mesh across all properties and when approached strategically, multicloud networking can help organizations eliminate the complexity of multicloud environments. This is achieved by employing consistent structures, configurations, and management consoles to operate and monitor across all locations. This approach improves security, performance, and scalability, allowing businesses to adapt more quickly to changing demands.
However, not all multicloud networking solutions offer the same capabilities. Therefore, it is critical to evaluate the solution for both its security and application performance optimization capabilities, as well as for connecting multiple properties.
Evaluating the solution
For many businesses looking beyond the time- and money-saving opportunities offered by cloud migration, there will still be significant challenges. These are often related to security and data protection issues. Therefore, without comprehensive security measures, the solution only removes some of the complexity and leaves the challenge of applying uniform security across all applications unsolved. As a consequence, organizations risk leaving applications vulnerable to cyber threats, undermining the integrity of their entire IT infrastructure. That said, incorporating these Supercloud services into a multicloud network solution further streamlines operations by offering unified tools and a unified management console.
The complexity created by the need to optimize application performance is equally important to address, as no one connects clouds just for the sake of it. Organizations leverage multiple clouds to achieve global reach, accelerate growth through rapid scale, or today, leverage AI services for competitive advantage. So as the need to adopt new platforms and as-a-service offerings increases, optimizing application performance is crucial to maximizing the benefits of multicloud environments.
Ultimately, these use cases are about applications and APIs, and applications need application services. These are security and delivery technologies that optimize, protect, and scale applications and APIs. They are part of the connective tissue, and often emerge as proxy-based solutions that offer capabilities such as identifying and stopping bots, defending against DDoS, and automatically adjusting delivery location to ensure the best possible user experience.
These services also add to the complex tangle of threads that makes delivering digital services an often frustrating (and expensive) task today. Multicloud networks that include application services as an integral part of the solution can offer the same standardization benefits as network services: lower cost, similar tools, and a single console through which to manage them.
Addressing the complexities of multicloud
In summary, the ideal multicloud networking solution should address the following challenges that customers face when operating across multiple cloud environments and data centers:
1. Ensure uniform security for all applications and APIs
2. Managing the complexity and costs associated with multiple tools, APIs, and consoles
3. Optimizing application performance
For nearly a decade, these challenges have consistently topped the list of multi-cloud challenges. Supercloud aims to address these issues, and multi-cloud networking serves as a foundational building block to achieve this vision.
Multicloud networks must be designed to address these complexities of multicloud operations and pave the way for a more simplified approach to hybrid IT management.
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