“Ta...dum”- by now every binge-watcher is familiar with Netflix's iconic intro sound. But do you know how this streaming giant could deliver glitch-free streaming experience anytime, anywhere. Its due to the technology called multi-cloud container orchestration?
Since its inception, Netflix has stood at the forefront of technological innovations. Given its scale of operations and global expansions, one of its core objectives was to offer a seamless streaming experience to its customers worldwide minus any performance disruption. It has led to them making their own container management platform called Titus and integrating it into their AWS Cloud. Thanks to container orchestration technology, Netflix today can drive services such as video streaming, studio technology, content-encoding, engineering tools, big data, and more.
While orchestration has become a mainstream concept in software development, a huge gap lies between its implementation and impact. One of the concerns faced by IT teams is architecting their container strategy as per their custom cloud model. This blog will focus primarily on how businesses can effectively charter their container strategy and manage containers risk-free across a multi-cloud platform.
Container Orchestration Strategy for Multi-Cloud: Why and How?
Businesses, by virtue of the complexity of operations, are fast shifting to hybrid and multiple cloud architectures instead of dumping it all on a standalone platform. For many industries, a one size fits all cloud solution is nigh impossible due to legacy silos. Implementing a container strategy in a multi-cloud environment is a complex process, requiring hence in-depth technical expertise. Container orchestration assists in deploying the same application across multiple cloud environments without having to redesign it. The microservices in these containers ensure seamless orchestration of services namely security, networking, and storage. This enables the DevOps to test better and make iterations faster.
Secondly, containers offer isolated environments between two or more applications. Meaning, that if a mistake happens in development or deployment, it will not directly affect the application's performance. For instance, container orchestration technologies like Kubernetes offer end-to-end visibility into failures in deployment. Since the failures are isolated, a component failure does not affect the application. IT teams can resolve these failures to the specific containers without hindering the entire functionality.
An effective container orchestration framework on multi-cloud helps in speeding up releases. This is because less time is taken to identify and fix issues or bugs in the development stage. In this way, the application performance improves, and the DevOps teams work efficiently and faster.
To drive real business value and great user experience, organizations must invest in a holistic multi-cloud container orchestration strategy. Let's explore the steps involved in making one.
Why Do You Need to Adopt Cloud4C's Containerization-as-a-service? Read the blog
9 Steps to Building an Effective Container Strategy on Multi-cloud
Assessing the Business Landscape
Adopting a seamless container strategy on multi-cloud takes more than intent, it needs a well-assessed approach. Conduct a thorough assessment of business objectives and use cases. These goals range from enhancing scalability, security, or cost optimization.
Choosing the Containerization Orchestration Platform
For deploying containers in a multi-cloud environment, there are a variety of container orchestration platforms available such as Amazon ECS, Kubernetes, and Docker Swarm. Account for parameters such as compatibility, ease of use, and scalability of the multi-cloud infrastructure. Tools such as Docker can help in packaging applications to ensure consistency across cloud providers. Create strategies for containerizing applications, dependency management, and image creation.
Enabling Infrastructure as Code (IAC)
Tools such as Terraform, Azure Resource Manager, or AWS CloudFormation can help in establishing IAC code practices. Define IAC to ensure version control, consistency, and reproducibility across multi-cloud environments.
Read this blog: How can you effectively deploy IaC on cloud ecosystems?
Advanced Networking and Connectivity
To enable continuous communication between services and containers, proper networking solutions should be implemented across a multi-cloud environment. For instance, enabling features such as VPN's, Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), VPNs, ExpressRoute or Direct Connect can help in securing reliable connections.
Fortifying Security and Compliance
To secure containerized workloads, enable multi-cloud security measures such as access control, encryption, and monitoring tools. Further, create air-tight security policies for compliance, identity management, and data protection in a multi-cloud environment.
Proactive Monitoring
Monitoring the performance and utilization of containerized applications in a multi-cloud environment is important. Leveraging tools such as centralized logging, tracing tools, and metrics can help in tracking application health, troubleshooting issues, and resource allocation.
Implementing Disaster Recovery Measures
Ensure that the containerized architecture is integrated with features such as redundancy, load balancing, and auto-scaling. Along with this, craft a disaster recovery strategy with failover measures, backup processes, and data replication to ensure business continuity in case of a multi-cloud outage.
Conducting Regular Testing
To ensure the effectiveness of a multi-cloud container orchestration strategy, conduct regular testing of security controls and failover scenarios to identify gaps, performance and compatibility issues.
Training Employees
Offer training programs and materials to teams on best practices and strategies involved in managing containerized workloads in a multi-cloud environment. Additionally, make a documentation of the multi-cloud container orchestration strategy, deployment strategies, architecture designs, and security measures.
How did a global logistics platform achieve 100% operational agility with effective containerization across multiple landscapes? Read this case study
Multi-cloud Container Orchestration Tools
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Definitions |
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AWS CloudFormation |
Automates operations across AWS cloud, but focuses more on provisioning than orchestration. |
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Azure Automation |
This multi-cloud container orchestration platform focuses on configuration management, visibility, and process automation. |
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Terraform |
Offers tools to establish workflows across any multi-cloud environment. |
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Ansible |
Configuring, deploying to, and unifying cloud platforms to build multi-cloud container orchestration systems. |
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Kubernetes |
A portable, extensible, open-source platform that helps in managing containerized workloads and enabling declarative configuration and automation. |
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GKE |
IT leaders can run their containers on autopilot and secure their workloads at scale with no or little K8s expertise. |
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Amazon Kubernetes |
A certified Kubernetes conformant service that optimizes the process of developing, maintaining and securing AWS Kubernetes clusters. |
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Azure Kubernetes |
Used for deploying, securing, and managing container-based applications and Docker containers within clusters. |
What can a Saudi bank achieve through leveraging a multi-cloud containerization platform? 100% SAMA-compliant DR operations. To know more, read this case study
Why Cloud4C Should Power Your Multi-cloud Container Orchestration Strategy?
Though businesses of today bear a rudimentary understanding of multi-cloud container orchestration, they fall short in its implementation and management. Cloud4C, a leading managed cloud services provider, offers holistic containerization orchestration services to help businesses of all sizes.
Cloud4C's Kubernetes managed services do more than just deploying; it ensures that the Kubernetes environment does not experience vendor-lock ins and enable seamless integration with other native cloud, irrespective of their complexities. Leveraging our Kubernetes services can assist the organization in seamless container deployment, scaling, securing, and healthy cybersecurity monitoring.
From the technical layer to the business layer, Cloud4C experts help in migrating, managing, and safeguarding app containers across hybrid and multi-cloud platforms at zero risk and data loss. Through our container management solutions and services, organizations can drive scalability, agility, and availability in apps, contributing to higher ROIs and quicker go-to-market timelines.
To know how we can get you ready for a multi-cloud container orchestration journey, visit our website or get in touch with our representative today!
