It started with a spark of awareness around containers’ virtualization methods as a framework, leading to efficiencies in packaging and deploying software applications that solve some of the longest-standing challenges in enterprise information technology. All while opening up a world of multi-cloud for shared workloads, data backup and protection.

“It’s been interesting in the last year to see a growing awareness of the importance of multi-cloud. I think there are two things have been motivating. One has been an understanding that it really isn’t a one-horse race anymore,” said Craig McLuckie (pictured), founder and chief executive officer of Heptio Inc.

Joining John Furrier (@furrier) and Peter Burris (@plburris), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during the Cisco DevNet Create event in San Francisco, California, McLuckie covered a broad spectrum of topics that surround the multi-cloud movement. (* Disclosure below.)

Multi-cloud enablers

McLuckie believes the second thing that increases multi-cloud adoption are businesses’ “legitimate” interest in edge computing. And, as they encounter the increasing volumes of data on their networks and on-prem systems, organizations are becoming aware that they need the agility that cloud computing offers.

With a bias toward Kubernetes — an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications — and containers, McLuckie commented that tapping into both of these growing points of awareness means having the ability to create a natural compute fabric that decouples your applications and services from the cloud provider.

Now companies can employ a cloud provider for the infrastructure offering, as well the flexibility of the cloud to deliver branded services.

“Multi-cloud starts with heterogeneity. It starts with the ability to run your workloads in a variety of environments … heterogeneity first of all around the physical infrastructure provider not being tied into a single provider model,” McLuckie said.

The second thing about is heterogeneity is a focus on locality and the capabilities that allow users to create something that runs both at the network edge and in a datacenter location that may be customer owned, he added.

Additionally, this functionality will support applications on a multi-regional scale that can run in the U.S. and other regions with regulatory requirements around data mobility.   

According to McLuckie, there are three benefits to the multi-cloud realm. First, he explained that the cloud is simply solving an infrastructure outsourcing problem.  Secondly, he noted that the cloud is a way to consume a broad array of exciting technologies as a service. The final point is about infrastructure mobility and having an opportunity to offer technologies as a service as an option for any company. 

“So for me, multi-cloud means hitting that level of heterogeneity and then being able to provision arbitrary services again in API and then deliver your own services in the same fabric,” McLuckie concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Cisco DevNet Create 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Cisco DevNet Create. Neither Cisco DevNet nor other sponsors have editorial influence on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE