【译文】Your multicloud strategy is all wrong 你的多云策略大错特错

翻译自 Matt Asay ( Head of Developer Ecosystem for Adobe) 的一篇文章，讨论企业对于多云策略的态度。原文链接

Multicloud seems like such a great idea. It’s unfortunate that it doesn’t work. It would be OK if multicloud helped customers but vendors were hurt in the process, but the opposite is true: Vendors are cleaning up by selling multicloud snake oil while customers keep getting stuck with lowest common denominator cloud strategies and sky-high expenses.

将基础设施部署在多个云平台上，听上去是一个好主意；但不幸的是，这种策略并不奏效。如果多云部署能够帮助顾客减少基础设施的花费，即使这会伤害一些云服务提供商的利益，这种策略仍然会被市场接受。然而事实恰恰相反，云服务提供商在此环节中得利，而顾客只会受困于其中标准最低的云提供商，并且为此付出天价的开销。

There’s got to be a better way.

The multicloud dream

Much of what enterprises say about their multicloud strategies is complete and utter rubbish. The idea of buying into multiple clouds to pit them against each other for price negotiations is one of my favorites, because the end result of buying into multiple clouds is multiple ways to lose track of cloud expenses. Not only that, but it’s beyond bizarre to think that, hard as it is to master just one cloud, adding others somehow will result in less cost, as Steve Chambers has written:

大部分企业关于多云部署策略的意见都是无稽之谈。我最喜欢的是其中一个理由，即通过部署多个云使得它们在价格上相互竞争，然而事实证明，当你使用多个云平台时，你在云计算开销上失控的可能性也水涨船高。那些声称增加云供应商可以减少开支的人，根本就是南辕北辙。

It is an indisputable fact that to be good at just one cloud, never mind many, you have to invest in trained and experienced people, evolved processes, and new tooling and technology. This can cost millions of dollars and months of experience. Some people never get good at one cloud, [therefore…]

1: You will have much higher overheads the more clouds you have

2: The more clouds you have the more shallowly you will experience each cloud.

请接受这个不争的事实，即使仅仅只精通一个云平台都需要企业训练大量有经验的技术人员，投资于不断进化的工具链和新科技。这些工作需要数百万美元和数个月的经验，如果仅仅部署在一个云平台上让你感到不安，那么：首先，在更多的云上部署服务将带来更多的开销；其次你使用的云平台越多，你对其中一个平台的掌握程度就越低。

That “shallow” experience, in addition to increasing costs, will tend to diminish the very benefits enterprises seek in the cloud: agility and innovation. I’ve seen this up close, when the decision to embrace a second cloud sent costs skyrocketing as we straddled two clouds with our workloads. The workloads never worked as well on the second cloud as they had on the first, partly due to a lack of familiarity with the second cloud and partly because the second cloud simply lacked many of the features we needed. Worse, it became that much harder to achieve resilience and security when juggling workloads across clouds.

这种“浅尝辄止”的尝试，再加上节节上升的运营成本，将大大消减云计算天生的优势：敏捷性和创新性。我已经遇到了这样的例子，当我们向两个云平台分派工作任务时，运营成本像坐着火箭一样急剧上升。第二个云平台始终不能像第一个云平台一样流畅地运行任务，一方面我们对第二个云平台不够熟悉，另一方面第二个云平台也缺少一些我们需要的功能。更糟糕的是，对于横跨多个云的工作载荷，我们难以实现同等程度的弹性和安全性。

“But… but… but… vendor lock-in!” you say. Well, as Derek Martin posits, the idea of being vendor agnostic is just that: an idea, and one that doesn’t work well in reality:

“但是..但是..但是.. （不使用多云策略将意味着被）供应商锁定”。

From a strategic direction perspective, it can make a great deal of sense to back multiple horses. “No vendor lock-in,” they promise. The fallacy here is that if you don’t back a horse, you will lose all vendor safety valves the very moment you go beyond the “least common denominator” of cloud services: storage, network, compute. To some in the C Suite, we hear that this is a good thing! “We’ll be vendor agnostic and move workloads between any cloud we choose.” No. You. Won’t. And if you try, you’ll lose time, money, and, tragically, data….

从策略的角度看，“不把鸡蛋放在一个篮子里”有很多好处。多云策略的支持者们承诺这种策略可以使得顾客“不被单一供应商锁定”。这种论调的荒谬之处在于，你一旦无法保证其中任何一个云平台的性能，你的服务就将掣肘于这些平台中最差的一个。你必须在存储、网络、计算等等方面向最差的一个云供应商妥协。

那些人声称，一旦你将服务部署在多个云平台上，“你将不再受困于任何一个云供应商，工作负荷将在这些平台上自由迁移”。这是极端错误的，你只会在花费大量的金钱、时间和数据之后发现自己的努力只是徒劳无功。

The naysayer will say, “Oh, we’re just gonna use containers for everything and then we’ll truly be agile and cloud agnostic.” No. You. Won’t. All cloud providers offer a common denominator of compute, storage, and networking—this we’ve discussed. But you cannot possibly take into account all of the nuances of each cloud’s specific implementation of containerization technology or governance any more than you could have a common storage endpoint for all clouds or a common networking model for all clouds or a common…. And if you try, kernel panics and failed PODs will happen. I’ve seen it, I’ve hugged the engineers that have tried it.

反对者会说，“让我们把所有的工作负荷封装在容器中，这样我们就可以做到在多个云上敏捷分布”。不，这种想法荒谬无比。所有的云平台都提供计算、存储、网络这一类的基本能力。但是你根本无法全面的了解不同云平台在容器技术上的细微差异，也不可能让所有云共享一个相同的存储模型和网络模型。如果你硬着头皮去尝试的话，你只会发现层出不尽的系统崩溃。

In short, the reasons enterprises often cite for going multicloud don’t hold up when put into practice. And yet Dominic Briggs, Sabre’s senior director of enterprise technology operations, isn’t wrong when he said in an interview that multicloud makes sense for enterprises that want to use “particular clouds for particular workloads.” So what’s an enterprise to do?

简而言之，大公司们支持多云策略的原因在实践中站不住脚。Dominic Briggs，Sabre公司的资深经理，认为应该根据各个云平台服务的差异，将某项服务部署在最合适的云平台上，而非将同类负载平摊在多个平台上。

Partnering for success

As one cloud vendor told me, “If you want consistent management across clouds, you can’t use any of the unique features of those clouds. As soon as you decide ‘I’ll use RDS or Cosmos DB,’ then all of a sudden your application isn’t portable to another cloud.”

一位云服务商曾经告诉我，“如果你想要可持续地管理多个云上面的任务，你不能使用任何云服务商提供的独特功能。一旦你决定使用CosmosDB或者RDS，你就应该意识到这项业务已经失去了向另一个云迁移的灵活性。”

Forced to choose, my guess is most enterprises want the higher-order services from particular clouds more than they want that portability across clouds. The latter may appeal to accounting, but the former appeals to the teams tasked with driving agility and innovation within an enterprise. If you had to pick one of those teams to appease, pick the developers. Every. Single. Time.

如果公司必须在“单个云上运行的高质量服务”和“多个云上运行的受限制的服务”之间做选择，我相信所有公司都会选择前者。后者也许在会计审计时很有吸引力，但是前者才是那些真正驱动创新和敏捷开发的团队所需要的。如果你要在会计部门和开发部门中做选择的话，相信你的开发者。每！一！次！

However, siding with developers doesn’t mean that an enterprise needs to cede control of its IT to a vendor. Rather, by going deep with a vendor, not only does that enterprise put itself in a position to develop more expertise with that cloud, but it also sets itself up as a VIP with that cloud.

然而，支持开发人员并不意味着公司需要向云服务提供商妥协。随着业务部署的不断深入，公司将会在云的使用上越来越有经验，同时自身也会成为服务商的VIP用户。

Anyone who has worked in enterprise software knows that while “all animals are created equal,” following Animal Farm logic, “Some animals are more equal than others.” Vendors always tend to listen to their most committed customers, and that “commitment” isn’t merely a matter of money. The cloud vendors, like all enterprise IT vendors, will tend to partner with those customers who help them to push the envelope on innovation and publish success stories (case studies, conference keynotes, etc.).

所有企业软件的从业者都明白《动物农场》里的逻辑，“所有动物生而平等，但是其中一些比其它更平等”。云服务商永远会偏袒那些黏性更强的用户，而这种“偏袒”无法用金钱来衡量。云服务商，和其他IT设施的供应商一样，都希望和那些驱动创新和塑造巨大成功的企业深度合作，通过企业的部署案例和实际经验来提高自己的服务。

As Martin writes, “Back a horse and become a partner to that provider, not merely a customer. Trust me, we’re looking for a few good true partners to not only help you digitally transform, but help us digitally transform with you.”

“选中一匹马，成为它最好的合作者，而非仅仅一个顾客。相信我，我们正在寻找一些最好的合作伙伴，我们所做的不是从你的业务中获利，而是和你一同塑造成功。”

This is the right way to think about agility, security, innovation, and cost in the cloud. Multicloud sounds nice, and it offers second-tier cloud vendors hope that they can serve some niche role within your cloud stack. Don’t be fooled. Enterprises that spread themselves between multiple clouds will slow innovation and agility, not increase them, while increasing costs and decreasing security. There’s not much to love in that “strategy.”

这才是重新审视敏捷性、安全性、创新性和运营成本的正确方式。多云策略看上去很美好，一些云服务市场的二级玩家正在尝试向你兜售这些策略，但是千万不要被它们给“耍”了！那些尝试在多个云上分摊基础设施的企业只会适得其反，成本上升、安全性下降、敏捷性消失殆尽。