Data Backup Digest

Most computer users have heard of the cloud by now. Existing as a collection of high-speed servers and databases, the cloud is a large-scale system that provides on-demand access to various resources. It’s the driving force behind many online enterprises and organizations today, and it will continue to shape the future of online business for years to come.

What, then, is the supercloud?

To put it simply, the supercloud, also known as the distributed cloud, provides a much-needed interface that encompasses all of the major cloud service providers today – including Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and more – in order to allocate, migrate, and terminate resources as needed. It even includes private cloud services.

However, it’s important to understand that the supercloud is not the same as a multi-cloud environment. Instead, it exists as a layer on top of an organization’s cloud infrastructure. While superclouds always consist of at least two separate cloud services, many view the supercloud as the end-all solution to highly complex, multi-cloud environments.

According to the latest research, most modern businesses use at least two different cloud environment as it is. Not only will the supercloud help centralize their cloud computing resources, but it will also eliminate many of the drawbacks associated with multi-cloud environments. These include:

• Lack of consistency when it comes to implementing security policies and controls
• Difficulty migrating apps across platforms
• Lack of visibility into the overall performance of critical, cloud-based applications
• Inability to optimize cloud-based applications
When using the supercloud, cloud users will see many immediate benefits, including:
• Stronger and more consistent automation between cloud platforms
• Greater functionality for real-time, cloud-based apps
• Improved system accessibility and availability
• Reducing budget needs and mitigating the harm of rising service costs
• Providing better security for data stored on your cloud servers

The AWS Unveiling

Although there have been rumors of the supercloud for the past few years, AWS’ re:Invent 2021 event really pushed the concept further than ever before. In fact, it was one of the key points of the event. With well over 25,000 in-person attendees, and hundreds of thousands of online guests, it’s safe to say that a lot of them had their first glimpse at the supercloud during this time.

Serge Shevchenko, a development manager with AWS, spoke about the purpose of AWS re:Invent and the recent emergence of the supercloud by saying: “We help these partners focus on what we truly need to build by working backward from customer feedback. Often startups try to boil the ocean with many different use cases, and we help them laser focus on what they are really good at and how to bring that to the customer as quickly as possible.”

In the end, it doesn’t matter if you call it a supercloud or a distributed cloud; the purpose is the same; to centralize cloud-based activities, bolster security, and optimize long-term system performance. With a team like AWS leading the charge, it’s likely that we’ll see the rise of the supercloud sooner rather than later.