2023 is being hailed as the year of the cloud — or at least, much like the years that came before it, a year in which cloud usage will continue to evolve and contribute to a growing share of an organization’s resources and success. Toward the end of 2022, Forbes noted that multicloud will continue to be an in-demand strategy, citing reports that showed how 84% of mid-to-large companies stated a goal of adopting a multi-cloud strategy by 2023. In the same timeframe, Gartner revealed that new spending was continuing to shift to cloud options, as evidenced by an 11.3% projected growth for software spending in 2023. 

A continuation of this cloud-first approach is seeing many organizations looking for more clouds that can more specifically cater to unique business demands. Organizations are wanting to accumulate strategic cloud specialties almost like how billionaires collect vacation homes — for the flexibility and the ability to remain agile depending on the needs or wants of the day. It makes sense, especially since each organization and workload brings individualized requirements to the table. However, that means that as businesses pivot how and where they connect to different platforms, data center providers and IT partners have to shift the way they’re delivering that connectivity to suit. 

Let’s chat about that.

With Cloud, Why Does More Make Merrier?

As noted above, with a variety of clouds comes a variety of options and flexibility. In hybrid (blending different types of clouds) and multicloud (blending multiple clouds of the same type) deployments are as unique as businesses themselves. Of course, the drive toward these deployments is very similar across use cases: Organizations need to accomplish more with their IT to meet more service, operations and revenue goals, and find new ways to optimize their levels of speed, agility and beyond. It all comes down to being able to react quickly and easily to workload demands, market and customer forces, and business goals. 

For example, hybrid cloud setups can be particularly beneficial for businesses that need to blend the security and control benefits that private clouds offer with the scalability and reliability that often comes with public options. If an organization isn’t sure whether or not their application will flourish in the market (and therefore don’t know how much capacity they’ll need to support its function), they might choose the “public to private” cloud pipeline. This means they’ll utilize the on-demand, cost-effective scalability of a public cloud platform until they know generally what their needs will be, upon which they’ll shift assets into a private cloud environment. On the reverse, some use public clouds to “burst” into during moments where fluctuating capacity demands exceed what can be accomplished in a private environment. This helps operations stay on track easily with additional computing space and resources to utilize when needed. 

On the other hand, many turn to multicloud frameworks for data backup and resilience, for the ability to tailor how certain workloads can utilize certain benefits across unique platforms, to avert vendor lock-in issues or any number of other reasons. Ultimately, why an organization chooses a hybrid or multicloud strategy pertains to their own needs, but how they get there is a huge part of ensuring success — and having the right cloud connectivity ecosystem on hand can make all the difference. 

Cultivating Rich Cloud Connectivity

If you’re already familiar with 1623 Farnam, you probably know that we take great pride in our connectivity ecosystem. Cultivating, expanding and enriching this ecosystem of platforms, partners and peers is at the core of our customer commitment, and it’s what makes us such a huge part of our customers’ IT strategy. Subsequently, we’re proud to say that our ability to empower hybrid and multicloud deployments has always been strong — and we’re always on the hunt for ways to make it stronger. 

We’ve built and continue to grow partnerships with Google Cloud Connect, Telia, AWS, MS Azure and other popular cloud enablers so that our customers can quickly and privately connect to the locations you need. Plus, the reliability, agility and scalability that comes with interconnecting at 1623 Farnam (and our on-site internet exchange OmahaIX) means that demanding workloads can get the robust foundations they need. 

Notably, we’ve built our cloud connectivity ecosystem in a way that solves for dynamic cloud needs, enabling any organization with any assortment of requirements to get the best of hybrid and multicloud goals. In fact, we partner with leading Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) cloud enablers like:

Console Connect

With access to Console Connect’s global network infrastructure and global ecosystem of cloud, SaaS, and data center partners, 1623 Farnam customers can quickly turn up powerful connections through an easy-to-use platform. This offers better agility, geographic reach, speed to deployment and more that makes any operational goal or cloud requirement easily attainable. 

Megaport:

As a leading NaaS provider delivering access to hundreds of global locations through secure and private connections, Megaport’s 1623 Farnam access point makes reaching every unique cloud easier than ever. Megaport delivers on-demand connectivity to hundreds of providers, cloud on-ramps and more across the globe — a game-changing resource for anyone’s cloud journey.

PacketFabric:

With a PacketFabric-enabled cloud ecosystem, 1623 Farnam is capable of supporting customers’ mission-critical workflows, helping them optimize hybrid and multicloud frameworks and more. PacketFabric delivers an ultra-resilient 65+Tbps private optical network and end-to-end automation, which offers enhanced agility, performance, scale, security and beyond.

The Right Foundations

High-value partners and platforms like those listed above are the key to making the most of the cloud without getting bogged down by complexity or confusion — and with us, that’s only the beginning. In the end, as clouds proliferate and diversity in every business portfolio, it takes an in-the-know partner to keep businesses on track.

If optimizing hybrid cloud or multicloud connectivity is on your to-do list, don’t hesitate to reach out.