Multi everything – how to increase the resiliency of enterprise IT infrastructure

Having a resilient IT infrastructure means that an organization can withstand, or recover quickly from, unexpected events or incidents such as natural disasters, cyber attacks, or power outages. It involves designing, implementing, and maintaining robust and redundant systems, disaster recovery plans, and business continuity strategies to ensure that critical business operations can continue even in the face of unexpected disruptions.

Connectivity resiliency is a must

For digital enterprises relying heavily on technology to store, process, and transfer data, connectivity resiliency is becoming increasingly important. The drive to build company connectivity to minimize the impact of external events on data flows is on the rise.

We like to call this a multi-x strategy – having multiple strategies to increase the resilience and flexibility of a company's data infrastructure, including a multi-cloud strategy, multi-location strategy, and multi-provider strategy.

Implement a multi-x strategy

A multi-cloud strategy is a technique that minimizes risk while pushing innovation by using cloud services from multiple providers. By having data stored in different clouds, the risk of cloud concentration and a single point of failure is reduced. A multi-cloud strategy is best supported by using secure, automated, and resilient connectivity to the cloud and between the clouds.

A multi-location strategy is another technique that creates highly resilient geo-redundant connectivity. This involves using data centers in multiple geographic locations and ensuring that the network pathways between different company locations and data centers follow distinct, non-overlapping routes. By having redundancy and following different pathways, connectivity can be maintained between locations via alternative routes in the event of outages.

A multi-provider strategy involves sourcing services from multiple network operators, carriers, and data center operators. This increases resilience and reduces the risk of a crippling outage by spreading the risk between multiple providers. This strategy also reduces the risk of vendor lock-in and gives organizations the flexibility to change providers as and when necessary.

Take advantage of full-service interconnection platforms

By implementing a multi-x strategy, organizations can ensure the resilience and flexibility of their data infrastructure. While implementing multiple strategies can be a complex undertaking, data center and carrier neutral companies like DE-CIX can simplify the process by providing high-quality interconnection services and dedicated cloud connections on their full-service carrier grade platforms.