Superclouds: Rule over your entire cloud ecosystem

A blog post by David Linthicum, Managing Director, Chief Cloud Strategy Officer

Superclouds are a topic that has really gained traction over the past year or so, because companies are realizing that they can be a boon to managing cloud complexity and your ability to do multi-cloud management. If you haven’t been keeping up with the latest trends in cloud, don't worry—you’ll be hearing quite a bit from me and other industry folks about superclouds over the next year and beyond. I think they’re going to revolutionize the cloud space and help companies drive more value from their cloud investments.

Superclouds: What they are, and what they’re not

So, what exactly is a supercloud? Essentially, it’s a way of abstracting the operation of multiple clouds into a single, cohesive environment. It allows companies to manage multiple clouds as if they were one, through a “single pane of glass,” without having to deal with the complexities of managing each cloud individually.

What a supercloud is not is a product or specific technology. Instead, it’s an architectural pattern. Granted there's lots of confusion out there these days, and some vendors may be offering to sell you a supercloud. They can’t. Supercloud isn’t yet a particular single product that you can buy. It's made up of lots of different technologies in the stack, but unto itself it's not a single product.

Why they’re needed

Why are superclouds so critical in today’s cloud environment? Well, for one, superclouds help remove some of the complexity that comes with managing multiple clouds. Each cloud provider has its own tools, APIs, and interfaces, which can be a real headache to manage. With superclouds’ ability to let CloudOps folks centrally manage operations, it’s much easier to keep track of everything and optimize operations—and keep them optimized as needs change.

Another benefit of superclouds is that they can help optimize costs. By bringing together multiple clouds, companies can take advantage of the strengths of each cloud provider while avoiding their weaknesses. This means they can use the most cost-effective cloud services for each task, without having to worry about the overhead of managing multiple clouds. Coupled with FinOps, superclouds have the potential to help enterprises optimize their cloud spend and produce more value as a result.

With superclouds, companies that physically run on different clouds, on-premise, things like that, are able to operate cross-cloud services, security, operations, governance, FinOps, etc. With those capabilities, they’re able to reduce redundancy by replicating services that sit in the particular public cloud provider silos, pushing that up into a layer above all their different clouds and services. They’re able to solve the same problem multiple times, in multiple cloud providers—at the same time—through a single layer of technology.

But that's not all—superclouds also provide a number of other benefits. For example, by bringing together multiple clouds, under a single control panel, superclouds can help to improve scalability, availability and performance by capitalizing on the strengths of each cloud provider. By doing so, companies can take advantage of the scalability and performance of each cloud, ensuring that their applications and services can handle traffic and load spikes.

They can also improve availability by ensuring that their applications and services are not dependent on a single cloud provider. Additionally, superclouds, via their centralized control capabilities, can help improve security by enabling easier monitoring and management of security policies and protocols across the cloud ecosystem.

But, of course, there are challenges

Of course, there are also challenges to implementing superclouds. One of the biggest is the need for standardization. In order for superclouds to work effectively, there needs to be a set of standards and best practices that all cloud providers adhere to. Without this, it’s going to be difficult to ensure compatibility between different clouds.

Another challenge is data sovereignty. When using multiple cloud providers, companies need to be aware of where their data is stored and ensure that it complies with all relevant regulations. This can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it’s worth it for the value superclouds provide.

And, as more and more companies move to the cloud, the demand for superclouds is only going to increase. We’re likely to see more cloud providers offering supercloud services, as well as more tools and technologies designed to make it easier to manage multiple clouds. In fact, some industry pundits are predicting that superclouds could eventually become the dominant form of cloud computing, and, right now, I agree. With the ability to provide a seamless, unified experience for end users, while reducing complexity and optimizing costs for businesses, it’s easy to see why superclouds are such an attractive option.

Superclouds are the future

So what’s the upshot? It’s that superclouds are one of the next “big things” in cloud computing. They offer a way to manage multiple clouds as if they were one, removing complexity; reducing costs; and improving scalability, availability, performance, and security. While there are challenges to implementing superclouds, the benefits are clear, and we’re likely to see more and more companies adopting them in the years to come. So, keep an eye on this space—you’re going to be hearing a lot more about superclouds.