The age of cloud and multi-cloud application delivery is here. For every enterprise, it has become a business requirement to deliver fast, reliable application experience — and cloud native and multi-cloud infrastructure has emerged as the most reliable, cost-effective way to improve experience at global scale.
But as enterprises embark on multi-cloud journeys, they are encountering new challenges and opportunities. Given the complexity of multi-cloud management, the diversity of applications and the global locations of users, many enterprises have not even begun to reap the full promise of multi-cloud to deliver application experience. Indeed, while 93% of enterprises agree that application experience is important for the overall success of the business, roughly two-thirds (64%) find they are unable to offer the same level of experience to everyone, while nearly half (47%) report it is impossible to keep up with the diversity of the application and user landscape.
The new Prosimo AXIS Report, The State of Multi-Cloud Infrastructure, provides valuable insight for enterprise IT leaders who are building and running applications in the cloud or procuring cloud services. The report is the first to directly assess performance across major cloud providers and across multi-cloud deployments, as it relates to delivering secure application experience. Prosimo commissioned Sapio Research, an independent research company, to survey 400 IT experts working in enterprise businesses. We combined this with our own data collected from nearly 500+ PoPs (points of presence) to compare the network transit performance of the three largest cloud service providers (CSPs): Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure) and Google (GCP), worldwide.
For enterprise IT leaders, the AXIS Report paints a full picture of the enterprise transition to cloud and multi-cloud infrastructure, the challenges and opportunities that cloud architects currently face and the value that multi-cloud infrastructure can provide for global application experience delivery.
Here are key findings from the State of Multi-Cloud Infrastructure Report:
- Enterprises agree that outstanding application experience is key for business success
While 93% of organizations agree that application experience is important for the overall success of the business, roughly two-thirds (64%) find they are unable to offer the same level of experience to everyone, while nearly half (47%) report it is impossible to keep up with the diversity of the application and user landscape.
- The growing diversity of applications adds complexity
Different types of applications experience significant variations in performance, even when connecting over the same routes, within the same CSP. Our report found that the variance can be 15-80% across applications. Furthermore, modern applications have vastly different architecture and security requirements that impact performance, making it difficult for enterprises to monitor.
- Security and complexity remain critical challenges
Enterprises are more concerned than ever about the growing threat surface caused by cloud transformation and the decentralization of users, applications and data across the globe. To address this problem, many enterprise security teams have turned to VPNs or inserting security vendor SaaS services to enforce user and application security policies. However, inserting mid-mile SaaS infrastructure can significantly slow performance — adding 28x the latency, compared to a solution that eliminates mid-mile SaaS infrastructure and brings security closer to end users.
- Variance among routes and CSP make it difficult to select optimal transit route
The variance across key routes between CSPs can vary greatly, adding additional complexity. For example, the report finds that the latency from Singapore to the UK had a variance of 50MS+ between the three CSP; and latency from Hong Kong to Australia had a variance of 20MS. Moreover, this underscores the dynamic nature of cloud networks; the number of users, data volumes, connectivity options, routes and other factors can impact overall performance at any given time.
- To realize the promise of multi-cloud, enterprises need to simplify their infrastructure, while gaining visibility and control
While 94% of organizations are currently using tools to measure application experience, the report finds that enterprises lack comprehensive tools that allow them to measure user-to-app and app-to-app performance, across key routes, cloud providers and application types.
Download the AXIS Report: State of Multi-Cloud Infrastructure today for complete insight into the challenges and opportunities enterprises face as they make the journey to cloud native and multi-cloud.
