Milind Malthankar, known for his deep expertise in cloud architecture and enterprise transformation, is a tried and true leader. With over a decade of experience, he has helped numerous global enterprises modernize their infrastructure, ensuring they remain competitive in an increasingly digital landscape. He is well-known for his innovative and transformative work on a number of landmark projects. His clients have included large corporations such as John Deere, Thomson Reuters, U.S. Bank and Paycor Inc. He’s now making his mark in a big way at Covetrus Inc. His strategic insights are leading the way to an innovative next generation of cloud technology.
Malthankar’s background is in using microservice architectures to provide feature-rich, customer-facing applications. That’s especially true of his tenure representing John Deere from 2007-2014. Specifically, he recalls in colorful detail just how much microservice architecture helped to alleviate the burdens that monolithic systems created. This smart strategy enables each service to perform best in its defined role while being designed, rolled out and scaled separately.
Consider multi-cloud as the collaborative use of multiple clouds – just like a sports team. Malthankar explains. Rather than put their eggs in one cloud provider’s basket, organizations use multiple cloud environments—whether they’re public, private or hybrid—and connect them together so they work as a single seamless system. It translates to greater operational flexibility, the ability to deliver services more quickly and efficiently, and avoidance of vendor lock-in.
His perspective could not be more timely. He understands that for organizations that want to deliver the always-on, constantly evolving needs of their global customers, multi-cloud infrastructure just became table stakes. Malthankar emphasizes that organizations willing to adapt should “start small and focus on interoperability from day one.” He advocates for choosing partners committed to open standards and investing in a robust governance framework to manage data sovereignty, security, and compliance.
Interoperability continues to be a major issue in cloud design. Malthankar notes that “interoperability is the biggest technical hurdle,” as different providers utilize varied APIs, data formats, and service models. The challenges of standardizing these interfaces while maintaining security and performance are difficult, but required for realizing the goal of seamless integration.
He warns of the perils that come with traditional cloud offerings. According to Malthankar, these systems often lead to vendor lock-in and result in compliance burdens that stifle data sovereignty. They further increase lack of flexibility and scalability, introducing performance bottlenecks, latency issues, and a single point of failure.
Malthankar imagines a future in which enabling technology changes the very fabric of business operation. Instead, he envisions an interconnected landscape of clouds that could operate efficiently and effectively with one another. “The future is open, flexible, and interconnected,” he states. “And multi-cloud is the bridge that will take us there.”
Malthankar’s vision is right in step with the burgeoning movement toward a multi-cloud reality. He’s always right, so as per his view, when organizations pair microservices with multi-cloud strategies, they can achieve agility and scalability like never before. “Multi-cloud adds complexity, but the payoff is huge,” he asserts.
