Note: This long-form article is an extended version of my short reflections on LinkedIn. The original post was a teaser of my perspective on multicloud.
👉 You can read it here: LinkedIn Post.
What follows here is the expanded version — with richer context, real-world cases, and practical checklists you can apply.
When I first started sitting in management meetings a few years ago, one phrase kept popping up again and again: “We need to go multicloud.” It was often said with the same tone as “We need to go digital”—as if invoking the word itself was enough to guarantee success. Heads around the table would nod, sometimes without much challenge, because multicloud sounded like the safe bet: more vendors, more resilience, less dependency.
But after watching several large enterprises wrestle with the operational reality, I’ve learned that “going multicloud” is rarely the silver bullet it is marketed to be. In fact, when done for the wrong reasons, it can create more chaos than clarity.
The Reality Check
The idea looks simple on a whiteboard: if one cloud fails, just shift workloads to another. But the devil is in the details:
- Architectural differences: GCP’s networking design is not the same as AWS VPC. Azure has its own quirks. Your system isn’t just copy-pasting YAML files—it needs rethinking at a deep level.
- API mismatches: Monitoring, scaling, logging, IAM—every provider has different implementations.
- Operational overhead: Your teams suddenly need to master two or three toolchains, not just one.
- Security drift: Policy enforcement becomes inconsistent. One gap is all it takes.
Instead of increasing resilience, multicloud—when poorly architected—often introduces latency, runaway costs, and a constant fire-drill culture where teams are stuck troubleshooting integration issues instead of focusing on customer value.
So, When Does Multicloud Make Sense?
Not every multicloud story is a failure. It works, but only under specific conditions:
- Application-driven needs — for example, an AI model that’s only available on one cloud, while transactional systems run elsewhere.
- Compliance and regulation — certain countries require data locality, forcing a second provider.
- Exit strategy risk — when vendor lock-in truly threatens long-term control, a second CSP becomes a safety net.
But here’s the nuance: multicloud ≠ every cloud. Targeting AWS + Azure + GCP + OCI + Alibaba is not only impractical but wasteful. The best enterprises I’ve seen pick two CSPs with complementary strengths and design for portability rather than blind distribution.
The Cost & Operations Lens
This is where reality bites hardest. Multicloud means:
- Multiple contracts and invoices to reconcile.
- Training and certifications that double or triple your talent requirements.
- Monitoring and observability tools that rarely work seamlessly across clouds.
- Governance complexity—what used to be a single cost dashboard now becomes five.
Unless you design with portability as the first principle, your total cost of ownership will balloon, and your talent will burn out chasing incidents.
A Better Way to Decide: The Cloud Suitability Checklist
When I advise teams, I encourage a simple framework before making the jump:
- Application dependencies – can it run elsewhere without major rewrites?
- HA and DR – what are the real business continuity needs?
- Data sovereignty – are there regulatory triggers?
- Native services – which features tie you tightly to one CSP?
- Interoperability risk – do you have the skillset and toolchain?
- Cost implications – not just CapEx vs OpEx, but billing predictability.
- Operational maturity – can your team realistically run two clouds well?
Surprisingly, in most cases a single trusted CSP with strong regional redundancy beats an immature multicloud setup. It’s not as flashy, but it works.
Closing Thoughts
Multicloud is not wrong—but it’s not a religion either. It’s a strategy, and like any strategy, it succeeds only when it aligns with actual business needs, not boardroom buzzwords.
I’d love to hear your experiences. Has your multicloud journey been empowering or exhausting? Did it come from regulatory necessity, or from executive hype?
Drop your thoughts below, or connect with me on LinkedIn so we can compare real-world lessons. Because at the end of the day, strategy only matters when it works for the people running it.
