The cloud orchestration market is currently valued at almost 23,000,000 USD and forecasted to reach almost 100,000,000 USD by 2034. Why is the projected growth so impressive? Here’s your short introduction to cloud orchestration – starting from what it is to how it can benefit your business.
What Is Cloud Orchestration?
Cloud orchestration is a process allowing for automated coordination and management of complex cloud environments. It can include provisioning infrastructure (servers, storage, networks), deploying applications, managing workflows, and automating scaling based on demand. This way, cloud orchestration automates workflows, optimizes resource usage, and enhances the general performance and reliability of cloud systems.
Cloud orchestration can be categorized into single-cloud or multi-cloud models, depending on whether it manages resources within a single-cloud environment or across multiple clouds. It operates within three basic models:
- Software as a Service (SaaS), which delivers applications over the internet.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS), which provides a platform for developing and deploying applications.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), which offers virtualized computing resources.
Cloud Orchestration vs Cloud Automation
Cloud orchestration is often associated with cloud automation – that’s because the two share similarities but are not the same thing. Though cloud orchestration does include automation, it’s not necessarily the same thing as cloud automation on its own. Confused? Here’s a short comparison of the two terms that will make the difference clear.
| Cloud Orchestration | Cloud Automation | |
| Focus | Focuses on coordinating and managing multiple automated tasks or services across cloud environments. | Focuses on automating individual tasks like backups, updates, or resource provisioning. |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Operates at a broader, system-wide level, managing workflows and service integration across multiple processes. | Has a narrower scope, targeting specific repetitive tasks within the cloud environment. |
| Complexity | More complex, as it involves managing the relationships and dependencies between various automated tasks and services. | Less complex, as it deals with automating singular or specific operations. |
| Goal | Aims to streamline and coordinate multiple processes for the efficient operation of cloud infrastructure. | Aims to reduce manual intervention and improve efficiency for repetitive tasks. |
Why Is Cloud Orchestration Important?
As cloud computing models are taking over the world – with over 90% of companies using it in their operations – cloud orchestration becomes an essential aiding strategy. By streamlining the management of complex cloud environments, cloud orchestration ensures that diverse services, applications, and resources work together efficiently, which is the foundation necessary to tap into the full potential of the cloud.
Top 6 Benefits of Cloud Orchestration
1. Enhanced efficiency and productivity
Building upon the points above, orchestration goes beyond just automating – it bundles tasks together into complex workflows, which largely reduces manual intervention and generally takes the whole operation to the next level. As a result, cloud orchestration speeds up deployment and allows IT teams to focus on more strategic tasks at hand.
2. Cost optimization
About 8 out of 10 companies consider managing cloud costs their top cloud challenge. By automating resource management and scaling operations dynamically, cloud orchestration solves this problem and helps to minimize waste and ensure that resources are used more efficiently.
3. Improved scalability and flexibility
One of the biggest strengths of cloud orchestration is that it allows for very seamless scaling of resources. This flexibility basically translates to applications performing optimally during peak times without overloading the system – it also helps manage resources efficiently during low-usage periods.
4. Enhanced security and compliance
In the past three years, 30% of companies reported a cloud-related security incident that cost them about $10 million on average. That’s a huge number. How can this risk be mitigated? Cloud orchestration can help, as its tools enforce security policies and compliance standards across all cloud environments. Automated updates and patches, centralized security management, and real-time monitoring help to protect against vulnerabilities and ensure adherence to industry regulations.
5. Improved reliability and availability
By automating failover and recovery processes, cloud orchestration ensures the high availability of applications and services. It can automatically detect and respond to failures, distribute workloads across multiple servers, and maintain system performance even in the event of hardware or software issues.
6. Better visibility and control
If not managed properly, VM sprawl can quickly escalate, which – unfortunately – leads to unnecessary spending, wasted resources, and overall increased complexity in managing the cloud platform. Cloud orchestration shields organizations from that by offering a range of tools to automatically monitor, alert, and adjust or decommission VM instances.
The Key Components of Cloud Orchestration
How does cloud orchestration work? It’s like a well-oiled machine that needs multiple tiny elements put in place to function properly. Here are its main components:
- Orchestration software: a central platform that manages and coordinates cloud resources and services.
- Automation and workflow management: tools for automating repetitive tasks and managing workflows efficiently.
- Service management: overseeing the lifecycle of cloud services, including deployment, maintenance, and retirement.
- Resource orchestration: coordination of compute, storage, and network resources to meet application demands.
- Integration and APIs: interfaces for connecting and integrating various cloud services and third-party tools.
- Configuration management: managing and maintaining consistent configurations across cloud environments.
- Security and compliance: ensuring adherence to security policies and regulatory requirements.
- Templates or scripts: predefined configurations and automation scripts for deploying and managing resources.
- Workflow engine: a component that defines and executes complex workflows and processes.
- Service catalog: a catalog of available services and resources that can be provisioned and managed.
Summary
The cloud orchestration market is rapidly expanding – again, its growth rate is CAGR at 21.86% – and it’s slowly becoming something that most companies should, not just can, have. The biggest strength of cloud orchestration is that it simplifies complex cloud operations and lets businesses focus on their primary operations and goals.
