97 Things Every Cloud Engineer Should Know

Chapter 3. Three Keys to Making the Right Multicloud Decisions

Brendan O’Leary

Senior Developer Evangelist at GitLab

In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about the possibility of multicloud and hybrid-cloud environments. Many business and technology leaders have been concerned about vendor lock-in, or an inability to leverage the best features of multiple hyperclouds. In regulated industries, there can still be a hesitancy to move “everything” to the cloud, and many want to keep some workloads within their physical datacenters.

The reality in the enterprise is that multicloud and hybrid-cloud are already here. A 2019 State of the Cloud report found that 84% of organizations are already using multiple clouds. On average, they use more than four clouds. At the same time, we know that software excellence is the new operational excellence. “Software has eaten the world,” and our competitiveness depends on our ability to deliver better products faster.

Based on those realities, the question isn’t whether you will be a multicloud or hybrid-cloud company. The question is, are you ready to be better at it than your competition? If we accept that a multicloud strategy is required, we need to systemize our thinking. There are three key enablers here to consider: workload portability, the ability to negotiate with suppliers, and the ability to select the best tool for a given ...