Empowering Digital Transformation: Part 3 – Optimize Your Network Transformation Strategy With Multi-cloud Connectivity

Investing in network enhancements for multi-cloud connectivity is essential for modern enterprises in the digital age. This strategic move is not just about keeping up with technological advancements but also about addressing critical business needs such as security, rapid provisioning and simplified management. In the third installment of our four-part digital transformation series based on recent IDC research, we explore the motivations and benefits driving multi-cloud investment and why it is essential to your overall network transformation strategy.

Boost Security, Cost Savings and Business Continuity

Cloud computing is evolving. Enterprises are no longer limited to using a single cloud provider. Multi-cloud strategies, also known as multi-cloud, utilize multiple cloud service providers to run applications. This approach allows businesses to use the best services from various providers, enabling greater flexibility and agility to respond effectively to changing market demands and technological advancements.

By distributing workloads across multiple clouds, enterprises can better optimize costs. Different cloud providers offer varying pricing models and performance capabilities, allowing businesses to choose the most cost-effective solutions for their specific needs.

Relying on a single cloud provider can pose significant risks, including service outages and vendor lock-in. Multi-cloud strategies mitigate these risks by providing redundancy and maintaining business continuity even if one provider experiences issues.

Different cloud providers have strengths in different areas. By adopting a multi-cloud approach, enterprises can optimize performance by selecting the best provider for each specific workload or application.

Gain robust security features

Security is a paramount concern for enterprises, especially when dealing with multiple cloud environments. Network enhancements that support multi-cloud connectivity often include advanced security features such as end-to-end encryption, secure access controls, and real-time threat detection. These features help protect sensitive data and comply with regulatory requirements.

Network enhancements play a crucial role in addressing these concerns by encrypting data both in transit and at rest, which is essential for protecting sensitive information. Enhancements that support multi-cloud connectivity typically include robust encryption protocols to safeguard data. According to a recent IDC survey on the advancement in technology deployment and the advantages of scalable, cloud-based and consumption-driven solutions, organizations state that securing apps and data (40%) and high-speed optical cloud interconnections (38%) are their highest priority use cases as they impact application performance.¹

Additionally, enhanced networks often include sophisticated threat detection and response capabilities. By implementing zero trust architectures, enterprises can ensure that every threat is thoroughly confronted, regardless of its origin. These systems will increasingly use machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify and respond to threats in real-time, minimizing potential impacts.

Strategic Benefits of Multi-cloud Connectivity

As enterprises continue to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape, a robust network transformation strategy that includes multi-cloud connectivity will be essential for staying competitive, secure and agile. By addressing top-of-mind security concerns and enabling rapid provisioning and simplified management, such network enhancements provide a solid foundation for future growth and innovation.

The key benefits of enhanced networks for multi-cloud connectivity include:

• Rapid provisioning: In a multi-cloud environment, the ability to quickly provision resources is critical. Enhanced networks facilitate rapid provisioning by automating many of the processes involved in setting up and managing cloud resources. This not only speeds up deployment times but also reduces the potential for human error. According to IDC’s recent survey, 43% of organizations need fast and easy provisioning of circuits.²
• Simplified management: Managing multiple cloud environments can be complex. Network enhancements that support multi-cloud connectivity often come with centralized management tools that provide a single pane of glass view of the entire network. This simplifies monitoring, troubleshooting, and maintenance, making it easier for IT teams to manage the infrastructure.
• Scalability: As businesses grow, their network needs to scale accordingly. Enhanced networks designed for multi-cloud connectivity are inherently scalable, allowing enterprises to easily add or remove resources as needed. This scalability can support the business’s growth without requiring significant overhauls. In fact, according to IDC’s recent survey, 40% of organizations state their network must be easy to manage.²
• Seamless collaboration: With employees often working from various locations, seamless collaboration is essential. Network enhancements that support multi-cloud connectivity enable better collaboration by providing reliable and high-performance connections between different cloud environments and on-premises infrastructure.

These advancements are pivotal for modern enterprises to remain competitive. And they require innovative solutions designed to meet the dynamic needs of today’s digital economy.

Lumen Digital: A New Way to Network

Your organization is constantly facing new challenges and opportunities. When you need to maximize application performance and availability, optimize IT investments and secure applications and data, you need infrastructure as dynamic as your business. You need Lumen Digital — your new one‑stop shop for innovative solutions designed to help you:

• Compose network, edge and security services to meet specific needs with integrated and customizable solutions
• Experience a cloud-like environment with self-service capabilities, automation and consumption-based pricing, simplifying the entire process of ordering, provisioning, managing, and billing for digital services
• Take advantage of our world-class fiber network, distributed edge compute and advanced security expertise to provide reliable, low-latency and secure connectivity and compute for mission-critical applications and data
• Accelerate digital transformation and innovation by harnessing the power of data, delivering seamless customer experiences and creating new revenue streams

Lumen Digital is designed for the digital economy, where speed, agility and security are paramount. Whether you are a large enterprise, a mid-market business or a public sector organization, we have the technology and expertise you need to overcome your challenges and achieve your desired outcomes.

Make Lumen Your Digital Transformation Partner

Organizations participating in the IDC survey experienced a range of benefits resulting from using a single provider for network and technology services, including improved security (54%), easier deployment and management (37%), operational cost savings (35%) and greater end-to-end reliability.²

You can experience these benefits and more with Lumen, your single source for integrated cloud-based solutions and services. We enable you to effortlessly connect apps, data and people through our fast, secure and reliable services for network and cloud connectivity, edge computing and security.

In “Part 4: Secure Your Future With A Sound Cloud and Edge Data Protection Strategy,” we look at drivers of network security investment, focusing on key concerns such as security threats, data protection and application security.

Ready to invest in network enhancements for multi-cloud connectivity? Explore Lumen Digital.

LEARN MORE 

¹IDC, Resource Map for Lumen – U.S. Lumen Digital Survey, May 2024.
²IDC, InfoBrief: Empowering Digital Transformation, July 2024.

This content is provided for informational purposes only and may require additional research and substantiation by the end user. In addition, the information is provided “as is” without any warranty or condition of any kind, either express or implied. Use of this information is at the end user’s own risk. Lumen does not warrant that the information will meet the end user’s requirements or that the implementation or usage of this information will result in the desired outcome of the end user. All third-party company and product or service names referenced in this article are for identification purposes only and do not imply endorsement or affiliation with Lumen. This document represents Lumen products and offerings as of the date of issue. Services not available everywhere. Lumen may change or cancel products and services or substitute similar products and services at its sole discretion without notice. ©2025 Lumen Technologies. All Rights Reserved.