What is Multi-Cloud Security?

Multi-cloud security is a comprehensive cloud security solution that protects and prevents enterprise and customer data, assets and applications from advanced security threats and cyberattacks across multiple cloud infrastructures and environments

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What is Multi-Cloud Security

Benefits of a Multi-Cloud Strategy

In the early days of public cloud, businesses would use one cloud to meet all of their digital infrastructure needs. Today, most cutting-edge companies are relying on multi-cloud strategies. These approaches use multiple cloud computing service providers to give the organization different options and capabilities to choose from.

If you’re looking for an analogy, you might think of it like the current cell phone service market. There are at least three or four major providers (and a handful of smaller ones, too) who offer cell phone service with distinct benefits and features. Businesses and families often use multiple service providers so that each individual can access the features they need and at different price-points.

Multi-cloud is leveraged in a similar capacity. It provides businesses with additional opportunities to maximize the value the cloud offers.

Multi-cloud is definitely one of the preferred strategies in today’s market. Organizations that implement this type of framework do so for numerous reasons, including:

  • Options. Everyone enjoys choices. And with a multi-cloud architecture, you get to choose from a variety of cloud solutions. This promotes flexibility and prevents a business from having to lock into a specific vendor or contract.
  • Risk mitigation. An outage can be disastrous. Even a few minutes of downtime can cost your business thousands of dollars (not to mention damaged reputation). Having multiple cloud environments ensures that you always have alternative resources and data storage on hand and helps avoid downtime.

But a multi-cloud strategy isn’t effortless. One of the main considerations is the need to protect across multiple different cloud providers, in other words: multi-cloud security.

Multi-Cloud Security Best Practices

The right security framework will protect your business and allow it to maximize the full value of a multi-cloud environment. Here are some best practices to help you make informed choices:

  1. Understand the BasicsIt’s imperative to understand how the public cloud shared responsibility model worksCloud providers maintain responsibility for the security of their own cloud infrastructure. This includes features like multi-factor authentication, encryption, and identity and access management. However, your organization is responsible for how the data, workloads and other cloud assets are secured within the cloud infrastructure.
  2. Consistent SecurityWhen performing identical operations on multiple clouds (for availability or redundancy purpose), you should implement the same security settings and policies on all clouds and ensure this is maintained to ensure continuous consistency.
  3. Automate Security EverywhereDon’t underestimate the importance of automating security tasks. And while this certainly helps save time, this isn’t the primary objective. Rather, the goal is to reduce the risk of human error.
  4. Minimize “Point” Security Solutions“Point” security solutions – distinct security tools that address distinct security needs – don’t integrate well together. Too many point solutions create manageability overhead and security gaps. For best results, minimize the number of point security solutions on hand. This significantly reduces complexity and lessens the likelihood of error.
  5. Single point of control:Simplify your multi-cloud complexity by using a “single-pane-of-glass” unified management that provides cloud engineers a single point of control to manage application and data security across their multi-cloud deployments.

Finding and Using the Right Cloud Security Solutions

For dynamic cloud environments, you need a comprehensive security solution. But with so many different cloud security solutions to choose from, zeroing in on the right one for your multi-cloud environment can feel like a real challenge.

The key is to be deliberate and patient. Vet each multi-cloud security solution carefully and don’t rush to choose one until you’ve gathered all of the necessary information to make an educated choice.

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