Why Multicloud Is No Longer Optional

How CIOs Are Redesigning Cloud Strategy for the Real World

According to the Barclays 2024 CIO report, 83 percent of CIOs are actively evaluating moving workloads out of hyperscalers and back into private cloud or on-prem environments. That number tends to surprise people, but it aligns closely with what I see every day in conversations with IT leaders.

Multicloud comes up quickly and often, not as a buzzword or a future aspiration, but as a practical discussion about how environments are actually evolving. I am having these conversations almost daily, and they usually start with a simple question. Why can’t we just put everything in one cloud and be done with it?

For a long time, that approach made sense. Early public cloud platforms dramatically changed how we consumed infrastructure, and consolidating workloads into a single environment reduced complexity at a time when tooling was immature. But that era is ending. The scale of today’s workloads, the cost realities of hyperscalers, and the growing importance of latency, security, and flexibility are forcing organizations to rethink what cloud strategy really means.

From Single-Cloud Thinking to a Multicloud Reality

I often explain this shift using a Marvel analogy, partly because I am a fan and partly because it fits surprisingly well. AWS was first and fundamentally changed how compute was consumed. Swipe a credit card, spin up resources, and scale on demand. It was Iron Man kicking off the Marvel universe, exciting, powerful, and far ahead of what came before.

Azure followed with deep enterprise integration and platform services that made it easier for organizations already invested in Microsoft to modernize. Google Cloud leaned into analytics and AI. Over time, more players entered the field, each strong in specific areas. At the same time, on-premises infrastructure never disappeared. It simply became more intentional and more strategic.

Every one of these platforms is powerful, but none of them is perfect at everything. In the Marvel universe, no single superhero could stop Thanos on their own. It required the Avengers working together, each contributing their strengths. The same concept applies to cloud. Multicloud is not about indecision or lack of direction. It is about assembling the right team of platforms to address cost pressures, latency requirements, security concerns, and increasingly complex application needs.

Why CIOs Are Re-Evaluating Hyperscaler-Only Strategies

This shift is not just theoretical. That same Barclays report reflects a broader change in priorities across IT leadership. Teams have invested heavily in training, tooling, and processes around public cloud platforms, so the idea of moving workloads out can feel counterintuitive at first.

For a while, staying put was the easier choice. Today, that calculation is changing because the tooling has finally caught up with the strategy. Hybrid and multicloud no longer require massive operational tradeoffs. Organizations can take advantage of cost, performance, and architectural benefits without fragmenting their operations or retraining entire teams.

Latency, Application Fit, and the End of “One Cloud for Everything”

Latency is one of the biggest forces behind this evolution, particularly as AI moves from training to inference. Waiting a second or two for a chatbot response is acceptable today. That delay will not be acceptable for use cases in healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, and other real-time environments. As inference workloads grow, models need to sit closer to data sources and applications, which makes a single centralized cloud model increasingly difficult to justify.

Application architecture also plays a major role. Most organizations run a mix of modern, cloud-native applications alongside legacy workloads that still live on virtual machines. Containers, app services, and managed platforms often make sense in hyperscalers that offer global reach and rich native services. Legacy VM-based workloads, particularly at scale, often do not. Cost predictability and control matter more for those systems, and private cloud or on-prem environments are often a better fit.

This is where the mindset truly shifts. Cloud used to be the destination. Now it is a tool. The conversation moves from where everything should live to where each workload belongs. That change opens the door to more strategic decisions and better outcomes.

Making Multicloud Operational with Azure Arc

For this strategy to work, organizations need tools that remove operational friction. On the Microsoft side, Azure Arc has become a key enabler. Azure Arc allows organizations to install an agent on virtual machines running in private cloud, on-prem, or even other public clouds and manage them directly from the Azure portal.

Patch management, policy enforcement, monitoring, and security workflows remain consistent. For teams that have spent years operating in Azure, this removes one of the biggest barriers to multicloud adoption. They can continue using familiar tools while the business gains flexibility in where workloads run.

This approach pairs naturally with private cloud platforms like OpenCloud, which is built on Apache CloudStack. Organizations can move VM-based workloads into a more cost-effective and controlled environment while still managing them through Azure. Finance teams see the cost benefits. Engineering teams avoid operational disruption. Leadership gains options rather than constraints.

Extending AWS Capabilities Beyond AWS

AWS has taken a similar step with IAM Roles Anywhere. Historically, interacting with AWS services from outside AWS required managing API keys, rotating credentials, and accepting additional security risk. IAM Roles Anywhere changes that model by allowing workloads outside AWS to assume roles using certificates, with permissions governed by standard IAM policies.

From the perspective of the application, it behaves as if it were running inside AWS. From the perspective of security and governance, it aligns with existing AWS best practices without adding operational overhead. This makes it far easier to design architectures where workloads live outside AWS but still integrate tightly with AWS services.

Your Multicloud Journey Does Not Have to Be a Solo Effort

Multicloud is not something most organizations want to navigate alone, and it does not have to be. Designing the right architecture, placing workloads intentionally, and operationalizing hybrid and multicloud environments requires both the right technology and the right experience.

US Signal helps organizations design, build, and operate multicloud strategies that align technology decisions with real business outcomes. From private cloud platforms like OpenCloud to managed Azure operations, connectivity, and data center services, US Signal brings the expertise needed to simplify complexity and turn multicloud into an advantage rather than a burden.

Whether you are just beginning to evaluate multicloud or actively looking to optimize where workloads run today, US Signal can help you take the next step with confidence.  Contact us today for a free consultation.