Interoperability Standards for Multi-cloud Environment

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As cloud computing has become a dominant model for distributed computing, with widespread adoption across industries, multi-cloud has been proposed to mitigate various challenges due to the heterogeneity of various cloud providers such as security, privacy, trust, cost of cloud tenants, vendor lock-in etc. The idea of multi-cloud computing has broadened the field of cloud computing and is a popular term in academia and industry.

Broadly three main areas are being explored for multi-cloud computing at present.

1. Interoperability of Clouds
2. Cloud Brokerage
3. Inter-cloud (Introduced by CISCO as an interconnected global “cloud of clouds” that mimics the term Inter-net, “network of networks”)

In this article, we will look at the Interoperability Standards for multi-cloud environments that are crucial for ensuring seamless communication and integration between different cloud providers, services, and platforms. These standards facilitate the exchange of data, workloads, and resources across heterogeneous cloud infrastructures. Following are the key interoperability standards and protocols commonly used in multi-cloud environments:

Cloud Computing Standards:

Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface (CIMI): CIMI is an open standard that defines a common interface for managing cloud infrastructure across multiple cloud providers. It simplifies tasks such as provisioning, monitoring, and scaling resources.

Containerization Standards:

Docker and OCI (Open Container Initiative): Docker and OCI provide standards for containerization, allowing containers to run consistently across different cloud platforms and container orchestration systems.

Service Orchestration and Deployment:

TOSCA (Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications): TOSCA is a standard for describing the topology of cloud applications and their orchestration, making it easier to deploy applications across multi-cloud environments. You can read more about TOSCA in my another article