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Cloud Orchestration 101: Everything You Need to Know

4 minutes read - October 05, 2021 - by Yondu Team
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Cloud orchestration helps businesses coordinate automated tasks and streamline workflow. Learn more about how this technology can benefit your business.
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Nowadays, more and more modern businesses are depending on cloud technology. They use multiple cloud providers to sustain their workflow. While the business grows and uses up different cloud providers, at some point, it will encounter compatibility and synchronization issues. If not addressed, these issues can be a hurdle for business growth.

Your business will need a seamless and sustainable ecosystem to avoid these potential challenges. That’s where Cloud Orchestration comes in. As indicated in the following study, there is an increasing demand for cloud orchestration. According to a global report by MarketsandMarkets, “The cloud orchestration market size is estimated to grow up to USD 14.17 billion by 2021.” 

Companies realize that to stay competitive within the industry, they must adopt an orchestration process that can schedule, execute, and automate task frameworks. While cloud orchestration sounds like a groundbreaking solution for your growing business, it’s important first to understand what it is. 

What is Cloud Orchestration?

Cloud orchestration uses programming technology to manage the interconnection between different cloud environments to ensure that workflows are consolidated. When there are numerous and increasing cloud applications at work, you will need cloud orchestration services to keep everything in sync. 

Cloud Orchestration vs. Cloud Automation

You must be wondering if cloud orchestration is just another term for cloud automation. Some may interchange these terms, but there’s a difference between the two. Let’s say that cloud automation is a violin or a flute, while cloud orchestration is the conductor that keeps all the instruments synchronized in an orchestra.

Cloud automation is a component of cloud orchestration. It focuses on repeating one task quickly, such as initiating a web server, with minimal operator intervention. On the other hand, cloud orchestration provides coordination for all automated activities. 

There are many moving subsets in a cloud. Orchestration streamlines all processes (failure recovery, dependency management, scaling) to reduce staff effort. Both orchestration and automation technologies work hand-in-hand to ensure that your cloud-based applications are delivered in a cohesive cloud environment that works cost-effectively and efficiently. 

Benefits of Cloud Orchestration

There are many reasons why several businesses adopt cloud orchestration in their systems. It’s mostly because of the orchestration’s range of benefits, which include:

Increased efficiency

With cloud orchestration, you can simplify the management of repetitive tasks through automation. Since orchestration supervises automation, it bundles individual tasks together to create a larger, more optimized workflow. 

It can also automate processes in multiple servers, networks, storage, and databases, so that you can deploy and manage your physical and virtual cloud resources more efficiently, tremendously reducing errors and issues. 

Reduced costs

Because cloud orchestration coordinates multiple processes, it can lower the costs of your infrastructure investment and reduce the number of system administrators. With its optimized tools and self-service processes, cloud orchestration can improve your company’s cloud service footprint when implemented for the long term. 

In addition to this, since your physical resources are interconnected with your virtual resources, you’ll be able to facilitate rapid scaling when you need to, making your business more flexible in prioritizing its expenses. 

Enhanced Visibility & Security

When your business has implemented cloud orchestration, you’ll have access to a unified dashboard that provides an overview of your cloud resources. With its standardized templates, it can analyze current and past patterns, predicting the usages of future resources. 

Effective cloud orchestration tools can automatically notice virtual machine (VM) sprawls and enforce security by providing visibility and control over your cloud ecosystem. It can validate user identity and permissions to prevent any unauthorized entries into the system. 

Cloud Orchestration Models

Your business’ workloads may come from public or private cloud infrastructures, mainly from either of these three delivery models:

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

SaaS is the most common form of a delivery model for cloud services. It’s also known as the delivery model of software application services. In this model, the vendor creates an application and makes it available for you on the web. You can access the software program by paying a subscription fee and agreeing to the service provider’s terms of service agreement. 

Pros: 

  • Accessible
  • Simple-to-understand billing process
  • Automatic updates
  • Workplace mobility

Cons: 

  • Data security is your responsibility
  • You don’t have control or configuration over infrastructure

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

In this model, the service provider offers the data storage, networks, middleware, servers, and operating systems that you need to create your application. It’s a code execution platform with a pay-as-you-go model.

Pros:

  • Cost-effective, no need to buy hardware or compensate for downtimes 
  • A fast way to create and market apps
  • Flexible, employees can log in anywhere

Cons:

  • Dependent on vendor’s capabilities
  • Risk of getting locked in a program, language, or interface you no longer need

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

In cloud orchestration environments, IaaS is the model that’s often utilized. It’s a cloud-based infrastructure where vendors provide the virtual space, networking features, and data storage through a server. Vendors can also offer virtualization services and tools that can help you streamline IT operations hosted within their cloud or between several clouds. 

Pros:

  • Low infrastructure costs
  • Easy to adjust data storage needs
  • Operational flexibility
  • Worry-free infrastructure, IaaS providers handling maintenance
  • Reliable, it can still provide access if one data center is offline

Cons:

  • Your responsibility to update security modes
  • Over-dependency

Maximize the Benefits of Automation With Orchestration

Whether your workloads are held on a public or private cloud infrastructure, cloud orchestration can help manage your system’s interactions and interconnections. This programming technology will continue to grow and be a part of many businesses across industries as it plays an important role in cutting down costs and improving security. 

If you want to jumpstart your company’s cloud transformation program, let Yondu’s cloud orchestration services guide your organization in becoming more productive and efficient. You can focus on growing your business while we create a seamless ecosystem for you. Schedule a consultation with Yondu’s cloud orchestration experts today to know more about how your business can improve its cloud presence.