Cloud Migration Strategy: Hybrid, Multi-cloud or All-in-One

Cloud migration promised simplicity: move workloads, reduce costs, and gain agility. Reality is considerably more complex. Cloud strategy decisions have long-term implications on costs, flexibility, security, and technical capabilities that many organizations discover late.

The Real Problem

Companies face a strategic dilemma with multiple dimensions: Bet everything on one provider and benefit from deep integrations but risk lock-in? Distribute among providers for flexibility but increase operational complexity? Keep part on-premise for regulation or performance but manage two worlds?

Cloud providers' commercial pressure doesn't help. Each promotes their vision as the only correct one, when reality is that the best strategy depends on each organization's specific context.

Why Companies Fail at Cloud Strategy

• Lift and shift without optimization: Moving VMs as-is to cloud without redesigning to leverage native services
• Multi-cloud by default: Distributing without strategic reason, multiplying complexity
• Underestimating egress costs: Data exit costs can surprise on the monthly bill
• Ignoring compliance requirements: Discovering late that certain data cannot be in public cloud
• Lack of FinOps: Without cost governance, cloud spending scales without control

The Nexagon Approach

We design cloud strategies based on business objectives, not technological preferences. We evaluate each option against clear criteria before recommending.

Realistic economic model
We build 3-5 year cost projections that include not only compute and storage, but egress, networking, management tools, and the opportunity cost of different architectures.

Automated landing zone
We implement the base infrastructure with IaC (Terraform, Pulumi) that ensures compliance, security, and best practices from day one.

Strategy Comparison

All-in with one provider (AWS, Azure, GCP)

• Advantages: Deep integrations, single operating model, commitment discounts
• Risks: Vendor dependency, difficulty negotiating, proprietary services

Strategic multi-cloud

• Advantages: Avoid lock-in, leverage each provider's strengths, negotiating power
• Risks: Operational complexity, inter-cloud networking costs, scarce skills

Hybrid (on-prem + cloud)

• Advantages: Regulatory flexibility, optimize workloads by requirements, gradual transition
• Risks: Double operational overhead, latency between environments, complex integration

Real Use Cases

Business Impact

• 25-40% reduction in infrastructure costs
• 50% improvement in time to market for new capabilities
• 99.95%+ availability in critical applications
• Elastic scalability that absorbs peaks without overprovisioning

Conclusion

There is no universally correct cloud strategy. The optimal decision depends on regulatory requirements, workload profile, team capabilities, and strategic objectives of each organization.

What is universal is the need to decide with intention. Companies that drift toward multi-cloud without strategy or maintain hybrid architectures by inertia pay the price in complexity and hidden costs.