Multi-Cloud Management with OpenShift, Cloud Foundry, Mirantis, & OnApp

Most enterprises now run more than one cloud. Multi-cloud management helps you control cost, security, and tools in one unified platform. 

This article breaks down 21 tools for automation, cost control, and governance that fit your existing systems. Use it to support a hybrid cloud strategy and avoid lock-in.

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Why a Multi-Cloud Management Strategy is Crucial

Running on multi-cloud platforms is now normal. You need a plan to keep control and speed.

• Massive Adoption: 89% of enterprises now use a multi-cloud strategy to boost flexibility and reduce risk. This means you’ll be spreading workloads across cloud providers, cloud platforms, and cloud environments. This way, one vendor outage doesn’t stall you. With solid multi-cloud management, you also avoid vendor lock-in and place each workload where it runs best.
• Market Growth: The global cloud market will reach $723.4 billion. Tools for cloud management are growing fast to tame sprawl across services. The goal? Reliable apps, clear ownership, and faster moves between cloud services.
• Wasted Spend: About 30% of cloud spending goes unused. Without guardrails, bills increase. Use cost tags, budgets, and rightsizing for cost management and optimizing costs. One more thing: align teams on usage, and review monthly to keep waste down.

The Core Challenges of a Multicloud Environment

Moving to multiple clouds solves some problems but creates others. Here’s what keeps IT teams up at night:

• Lack of Visibility: In multi-cloud management, spend gets murky fast. Most organisations struggle with cost visibility. Your cloud resources live across cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Result? Dashboards don’t match, and you miss waste.
• Rising Costs: About 54% of businesses battle growing bills. Each of the cloud providers prices things differently. Without tight cloud management, you over-provision, forget idle cloud services, and pay for duplicates across multiple clouds.
• Tool Fatigue: Too many tools slow teams down. Billing here, security there, deploys somewhere else. Context switching kills focus. Standardize where you can. And yes, avoid vendor lock-in with common guardrails. 

Top Multi-Cloud Management Tools to Tame Complexity

Let’s dive into the solutions that can transform your multi-cloud chaos into coordinated efficiency.

Cost Optimization Tools

Cut cloud waste with the right tools. Use them to track spend, spot idle resources, and set smart budgets before costs spike.

1. CloudZero AnyCost

CloudZero AnyCost gives you granular cost data across various cloud platforms. These include AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, and Snowflake. 

It maps spend to products, features, and teams for clear unit economics. You’ll see what each customer or feature costs. 

This boosts cost visibility for IT teams across multi-cloud providers. It also increases cost visibility on cloud platforms and cloud infrastructure. You’ll know exactly what each customer or feature costs you.

Case Study: Helped Drift reduce its annual AWS spend by $2.4 million. That’s not pocket change. It’s transformative savings that directly impact the bottom line.

2. Flexera One

Flexera One is your all-in-one control panel for FinOps, IT asset management, and SaaS governance. 

It works across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle, and SAP with strong policy guardrails. You get a live cost dashboard and alerts to stop waste fast. 

You can use it for multi-cloud management and day-to-day cloud management across cloud platforms and cloud providers. It also reduces vendor lock-in and supports multi-cloud environments.

3. nOps

nOps is an AI FinOps tool that cuts bills by up to 50%. It watches cloud usage. It also auto-optimizes cost allocation, rightsizing, and storage across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

You get better cost visibility and smoother cloud management in a multicloud environment. 

It also guarantees 100% EC2 commitment use. It is even HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant. Its results? Lower cloud spending without vendor lock.

4. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) gives you one place to run multi-cloud management. It unifies cloud management across on-prem and public cloud. 

You get clear cost visibility, policy automation, and self-service. Need guardrails? Apply security policies and compliance management by default. 

NCM streamlines cloud operations, improves infrastructure management, and supports disaster recovery. It offers faster delivery, lower waste, and less vendor lock-in. It didn’t matter if you run one cloud or a full multi-cloud setup.

5. Hystax OptScale

Hystax OptScale is an open-source FinOps tool for cost visibility and right-sizing. It works across AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba Cloud, and Kubernetes. It is also handy if you run multi-cloud. 

You get clear spend insights that nudge teams to own costs. Use it to improve cloud management, cut waste, and reduce vendor lock-in. 

It supports major cloud platforms and cloud services. This feature makes multi-cloud management simpler for growing teams.

6. CAST AI

CAST AI cuts Kubernetes costs on AWS, Azure, and the Google Cloud platform. It auto-rightsizes, removes idle nodes, and cheaper Spot Instances when safe.  

You get continuous tuning and real-time autoscaling, so capacity matches demand. It supports a multi-cloud approach, avoids vendor lock-in, and simplifies cloud operations. 

It’s a cloud management tool that streamlines infrastructure management across different cloud providers.

7. VMware CloudHealth

VMware CloudHealth gives you clear spend, smooth ops, and policy-driven compliance. You get custom rules, cost breakdowns by team, and easy chargeback/showback. 

It now sits in VMware Aria for tighter integrations. You can use it to run multi-cloud management and cloud management, reducing vendor lock-in. 

It also supports hybrid cloud and enforces continuous compliance monitoring across your multi-cloud setup.

8. IBM Cloudability

IBM Cloudability pulls and normalizes cost data from AWS, Azure, and GCP into one source of truth. You get clear spending by app, project, or business unit fast. 

It’s a focused multi-cloud management tool for cost control across multiple cloud platforms and public cloud services. However, it also focuses on cost without security or governance features.

Security, Governance, and Disaster Recovery Tools

Running apps across multiple clouds gets disorganized easily. These tools tighten security and enforce governance, so you cut risk and stay in control.

9. Lacework

Lacework helps you secure multi-cloud stacks across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes. Security can’t be an afterthought in complex environments.

It uses behavior-based analytics to learn what’s normal and flags drift, vulnerabilities, and misconfigurations. 

You can deploy agentless or agent-based, your call. The result? Multi-cloud security with consistent security across different cloud platforms. 

Need fit with hybrid environments and business continuity goals? Lacework plugs in and works alongside your existing cloud management tools.

10. BMC Multi-Cloud Management

BMC Multi-Cloud Management lets you carry ITSM and governance from on-premises to multi-cloud without rewriting your playbook. 

It serves as a multi-cloud management tool for migration planning that cuts errors and downtime. You can enforce policies and fulfill requests across multiple public clouds and cloud vendor stacks. 

This way, you’ll be maintaining consistent security. The platform offers less risk and fewer compliance gaps. It has a resilient multi-cloud infrastructure that avoids vendor lock and drives business outcomes.

11. Zerto

Zerto keeps your business running when trouble hits. It delivers fast recovery and backup with continuous data protection and near-zero RPOs. 

It migrates or replicates across AWS, Azure, GCP, IBM, Oracle, and 350+ MSPs. This is true multi-cloud freedom from vendor lock. 

It also uses a software-only workflow for on-premises and multiple cloud providers. It can work with any public cloud provider or a single cloud. It’s simple multicloud management for multiple cloud services.

12. Control Plane

Control Plane adds a serverless mode that scales containers to zero, cutting idle spend by up to 70%. You pay only for what you use. 

It lets you combine AWS, GCP, and Azure for low latency. It also allows you to manage multi-cloud with cloud management tools.  This way, you’ll avoid vendor lock from single cloud providers across different cloud services.

Case Study: SafeHealth used Control Plane to reduce its AWS spend by 75%. Dramatic savings like this are possible with the right architecture.

Orchestration & Automation Tools

Juggling clouds across vendors? These tools standardize workflows and tame your multi-cloud stack.

13. Terraform

Terraform lets you define infrastructure as code and spin up resources across 200+ providers. You write once, reuse, and track changes with version control. 

One workflow keeps configurations in sync and stops drift. It’s cloud-agnostic, so your multi-cloud plans stay flexible, with no vendor lock. Plus, it doesn’t matter if you run in the cloud or on premises, across multiple environments.

14. Morpheus Data

Morpheus Data lets you provision VMs, containers, and bare metal across AWS, Azure, GCP, and VMware. And it lets you do this from one unified platform. 

You get self-service with built-in governance, guardrails, and cost visibility. It’s built for multi-cloud teams needing simple multicloud management across multiple cloud environments.

15. Cloudify

Cloudify is an open-source orchestrator for app deployment across multi-cloud and data centers. You model with Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA). 

Then it automates the lifecycle, heals failures, and handles updates. 

It fits existing systems, supports multiple platforms, and hybrid cloud deployments. It delivers multicloud management from a single platform.

16. CloudBolt

CloudBolt gives you one control panel across 20+ platforms. These platforms include AWS, Azure, GCP, and Hyper-V. 

It offers spin-up resources from a curated catalog with cost tracking and budgets built in. It also unifies governance and self-service for multi-cloud and private cloud. It works across different cloud environments and various cloud providers.

17. Red Hat Ansible

Red Hat Ansible automates setup and updates across servers and clouds. You write simple playbooks, then push consistent changes at scale. 

It fits your existing infrastructure and hybrid cloud strategy and works with multiple providers. It also streamlines multi-cloud deployment for fewer mistakes and faster rollouts.

18. Scalr

Scalr gives your Terraform and OpenTofu teams a secure, shared backend. It handles state, provider auth, and policy-as-code, so workflows stay tidy. 

You get guardrails, RBAC, and audit logs. Plus support for multi-cloud architectures across private cloud environments with clearer cross-cloud visibility.

19. IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management

IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management runs on Red Hat OpenShift and puts apps first. 

You get policy, visibility, and control for Kubernetes across all the cloud providers. It helps run multi-cloud applications, guides multi-cloud migration, and simplifies managing data.

Monitoring & Kubernetes Tools

These monitoring and Kubernetes tools help you automate fixes and keep every cluster in line.

20. Dynatrace

Dynatrace gives you a full-stack observability platform for apps and infrastructure across any cloud. It maps dependencies in real time and uses AI in business and AIOps to find root causes fast. 

You get clear insights for multi-cloud management across AWS, Azure, GCP, Red Hat, and VMware. 

It also complements AWS Systems Manager for deeper ops. It provides fewer blind spots, faster fixes, and happier users.

21. Platform9 Managed Kubernetes (PMK)

Platform9 Managed Kubernetes gives you a SaaS control plane for public, edge, and private clouds. Manage clusters across multiple clouds from one dashboard. 

It handles HA, monitoring, and auto-upgrades. It offers simpler cloud management for multi-cloud management of Kubernetes on modern cloud platforms.

Choosing the Right Cloud Platforms for Your Business Needs

Choosing the right cloud platform starts with creating your website. Do you need simple hosting, data storage, or advanced AI? Match services to goals, then check pricing, uptime SLAs, and support. 

For beginners, website builders like Hostinger and IONOS offer an easy, code-free way to get online. For more complex needs, you can explore platforms like WordPress. Don’t forget to choose the best web hosting provider to ensure performance and reliability.

Start small, then scale. Use open standards to avoid lock-in. Need different tools? Mix providers with multi-cloud management. Keep costs and performance in one view with solid cloud management. Pick the platform that fits today, but can grow with you tomorrow.

A Comparative Look at Top Multi-Cloud Management Solutions

Conclusion

Pick tools that give you one view, automation, and control. Start with your top pain, like costs, security, or compliance, and fix that first. With smart multi-cloud management, you can cut waste and ship faster across cloud providers. Then tighten your multi-cloud strategy as you grow.

Struggling to choose a cloud host? Check out our curated top 10 picks.

Next Steps: What Now?

Multi-cloud is powerful but messy. Here’s the quick path to control, lower costs, and stay secure:

1. Map your reality.
2. Pick a core tool stack. 
3. Lay down guardrails. 
4. Automate provisioning. 
5. Cut waste fast. 
6. Monitor continuously. 
7. Review and iterate. 

Further Reading & Useful Resources

Quick reads to level up your cloud knowledge:

• Colocation vs. Cloud: Compare costs, control, and when each model fits.
• Cloud Deployment Models: Public, private, hybrid, and community explained.
• What Is Cloud VPS?: How virtual private servers work and when to choose them.
• What Is Hybrid Cloud?: Blend on-prem and cloud for flexibility and scale.
• Cloud Storage Trends: Latest insights on cost, performance, and data growth.