Optimizing Load Balancing Method For Multi-Cloud

We live in a multi-cloud world, which has become a buzzword today. Multi-cloud, by definition, is the use of multiple cloud computing and storage in a single heterogenous environment. While a multi-cloud deployment can refer to any implementation of multiple software as a service (SaaS) or platform as a service(PaaS) cloud offerings, today it generally refers to a mix of public infrastructure as a service environment. Multi-cloud enables freedom to run an application, data or workload on private or public cloud based on business or technical requirements. It not only gives choice and flexibility to enterprises but also helps them to choose the cloud and services that are best suited for their business. IT leaders need to recognize that multi-cloud is an application strategy, not an infrastructure strategy.

Multiple clouds ≠ multi-cloud

Enterprises are adopting multiple clouds but have not yet transitioned to multi-cloud. Instead of managing one data center, IT teams are managing additional cloud silos. The value of flexibility and choice are lost in the mire of complexity, but it is not the fault of the cloud vendors. Adopting multiple clouds can deliver a better global footprint but at the same time, can also fracture your applications, teams and budget. A fragmented cloud strategy like this is costly, time-consuming and counter promise of multi-cloud.

Acquiring cloud resources from multiple vendors is the easy part but building a seamless application lifecycle is quite challenging. The idea of multiple cloud looks great on paper, however, it becomes increasingly complex when you try to move to production especially when you need applications like load balancing and web application firewall (WAF).

Multi-cloud can only be achieved by abstracting applications from the underlying infrastructure and application services, such as load balancers. Load balancing is an integral part of software systems that requires to serve requests with multiple computing resources such as networks links, servers, clusters, etc. It aims to optimize resource use, minimize response time, maximize throughput and avoid overload of any single resource. The goal is to make the application agnostic to the cloud infrastructure and apply services directly to the application so the services have the same portability as the application. Abstraction allows enterprises to move at the speed of their applications, not the infrastructure that delivers them. Many platforms are agnostic and span multiple clouds with ease. However, load balancing and WAF, are still infrastructure-centric and do not align with the multi-cloud application strategy.

The native load balancing solutions from the cloud providers only function in their respective environment. For example AWS ELB does not work in Azure and Azure’s Application Gateway does not work in AWS. Similarly, virtualized load balancers are configured to operate inside of an infrastructure silo. These load balancers still function as appliances which means they are linked to infrastructure and do not have the same flexibility and portability that your applications do.  Traditional load balancers have solutions designed around infrastructure and not your application.

Multi-cloud load balancing with a traditional vendor takes a lot of consideration and limits much of the flexibility and choice that drew you to multi-cloud infrastructure in the first place.

Now the main challenge is to provide high availability for applications across your multi-cloud environment so that it aligns with your application strategy. It isnow time to  re-think about load balancing.

Over the years, the business model and mindset towards infrastructure have changed radically.These changes made multi-cloud realistic and attainable. Earlier, racking and stacking used to be commonplace. Managing hardware was the fastest way to get the infrastructure that the company needed. Today, investment in hardware infrastructure is rare. Application teams are more interested in getting the resources they need instead of being opinionated about how the resources are delivered to them.

Load balancing has seen little change in the past decade. The architecture is the same  which means they are not capable to deliver services that applications need to thrive in a multi-cloud world. These appliances, hardware or virtual, are not application-centric and in no way support multi-cloud initiatives.

Like other appliances, they need to be re-imaged as software services that can be deployed per-app and move with the application to whatever environment is best suited for the application.

Two clouds are better than one, as long as the applications are able to get the resources and the services they need. Multi-cloud is an application strategy and the only way to bring this strategy to life is to leverage infrastructure and services that put your applications first. Enterprises cannot afford to have opinionated load balancer compromising their multi-cloud initiatives. IT teams should not deploy and scale applications through the lens of infrastructure. They should quickly deploy applications wherever it best suits the business. Abstracting away infrastructure-specific application services gives enterprises the advantage of multi-cloud. Hence organisations need to find an agnostic load balancer which runs across any environment and embraces the automation so that the applications can move at the speed of your business.

By Ashish Shah, VP of Product Management and Technical Marketing, Avi Networks