Cloud Infrastructure

Chapter 37 of 180

Multi Cloud Architecture

Design multi-cloud architectures using a decision framework to select and integrate services across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI.

2 minutes · 547 words · 24 sections

Decision framework and patterns for architecting applications across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI.

Purpose

Design cloud-agnostic architectures and make informed decisions about service selection across cloud providers.

When to Use

Design multi-cloud strategies
Migrate between cloud providers
Select cloud services for specific workloads
Implement cloud-agnostic architectures
Optimize costs across providers

Cloud Service Comparison

Compute Services

AWS	Azure	GCP	OCI	Use Case
EC2	Virtual Machines	Compute Engine	Compute	IaaS VMs
ECS	Container Instances	Cloud Run	Container Instances	Containers
EKS	AKS	GKE	OKE	Kubernetes
Lambda	Functions	Cloud Functions	Functions	Serverless
Fargate	Container Apps	Cloud Run	Container Instances	Managed containers

Storage Services

AWS	Azure	GCP	OCI	Use Case
S3	Blob Storage	Cloud Storage	Object Storage	Object storage
EBS	Managed Disks	Persistent Disk	Block Volumes	Block storage
EFS	Azure Files	Filestore	File Storage	File storage
Glacier	Archive Storage	Archive Storage	Archive Storage	Cold storage

Database Services

AWS	Azure	GCP	OCI	Use Case
RDS	SQL Database	Cloud SQL	MySQL HeatWave	Managed SQL
DynamoDB	Cosmos DB	Firestore	NoSQL Database	NoSQL
Aurora	PostgreSQL/MySQL	Cloud Spanner	Autonomous Database	Distributed SQL
ElastiCache	Cache for Redis	Memorystore	OCI Cache	Caching

Reference: See references/service-comparison.md for complete comparison

Multi-Cloud Patterns

Pattern 1: Single Provider with DR

Primary workload in one cloud
Disaster recovery in another
Database replication across clouds
Automated failover

Pattern 2: Best-of-Breed

Use best service from each provider
AI/ML on GCP
Enterprise apps on Azure
Regulated data platforms on OCI
General compute on AWS

Pattern 3: Geographic Distribution

Serve users from nearest cloud region
Data sovereignty compliance
Global load balancing
Regional failover

Pattern 4: Cloud-Agnostic Abstraction

Kubernetes for compute
PostgreSQL for database
S3-compatible storage (MinIO)
Open source tools

Cloud-Agnostic Architecture

Use Cloud-Native Alternatives

Compute: Kubernetes (EKS/AKS/GKE/OKE)
Database: PostgreSQL/MySQL (RDS/SQL Database/Cloud SQL/MySQL HeatWave)
Message Queue: Apache Kafka or managed streaming (MSK/Event Hubs/Confluent/OCI Streaming)
Cache: Redis (ElastiCache/Azure Cache/Memorystore/OCI Cache)
Object Storage: S3-compatible API
Monitoring: Prometheus/Grafana
Service Mesh: Istio/Linkerd

Abstraction Layers

Application Layer
    ↓
Infrastructure Abstraction (Terraform)
    ↓
Cloud Provider APIs
    ↓
AWS / Azure / GCP / OCI

Cost Comparison

Compute Pricing Factors

AWS: On-demand, Reserved, Spot, Savings Plans
Azure: Pay-as-you-go, Reserved, Spot
GCP: On-demand, Committed use, Preemptible
OCI: Pay-as-you-go, annual commitments, burstable/flexible shapes, preemptible instances

Cost Optimization Strategies

Use reserved/committed capacity (30-70% savings)
Leverage spot/preemptible instances
Right-size resources
Use serverless for variable workloads
Optimize data transfer costs
Implement lifecycle policies
Use cost allocation tags
Monitor with cloud cost tools

Reference: See references/multi-cloud-patterns.md

Migration Strategy

Phase 1: Assessment

Inventory current infrastructure
Identify dependencies
Assess cloud compatibility
Estimate costs

Phase 2: Pilot

Select pilot workload
Implement in target cloud
Test thoroughly
Document learnings

Phase 3: Migration

Migrate workloads incrementally
Maintain dual-run period
Monitor performance
Validate functionality

Phase 4: Optimization

Right-size resources
Implement cloud-native services
Optimize costs
Enhance security

Best Practices

Use infrastructure as code (Terraform/OpenTofu)
Implement CI/CD pipelines for deployments
Design for failure across clouds
Use managed services when possible
Implement comprehensive monitoring
Automate cost optimization
Follow security best practices
Document cloud-specific configurations
Test disaster recovery procedures
Train teams on multiple clouds

terraform-module-library - For IaC implementation
cost-optimization - For cost management
hybrid-cloud-networking - For connectivity

Install this repository

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About this skill

Trigger

Design multi-cloud architectures using a decision framework to select and integrate services across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI. Use when building multi-cloud systems, avoiding vendor lock-in, or leveraging best-of-breed services from multiple providers.

The verbatim description from this skill’s front matter — the string an agent matches on to decide whether to load it.

Colophon for this issue

Colophon

How this issue was made

Source

github.com/wshobson/agents, branch main, last pushed 5 August 2026.

Licence

MIT — the text of every chapter is reproduced unmodified, frontmatter included, under the upstream licence.

Discovery

180 chapters found by walking the repository tree for SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 49 distinct layouts observed: plugins/accessibility-compliance/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/agent-teams/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/api-scaffolding/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/backend-development/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/before-you-build/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/block-no-verify/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/blockchain-web3/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/brand-landingpage/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/business-analytics/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/cicd-automation/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/cloud-infrastructure/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/conductor/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/data-engineering/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/database-design/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/developer-essentials/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/dgx-spark-ops/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/documentation-generation/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/documentation-standards/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/dotnet-contribution/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/file-conversion/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/framework-migration/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/frontend-mobile-development/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/game-development/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/hermes-tweet/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/hr-legal-compliance/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/incident-response/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/javascript-typescript/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/kubernetes-operations/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/llm-application-dev/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/llm-finetuning/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/machine-learning-ops/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/observability-monitoring/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/payment-processing/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/plugin-eval/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/pptx-deck-creation/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/protect-mcp/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/python-development/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/quantitative-trading/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/reverse-engineering/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/review-agent-governance/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/security-scanning/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/shell-scripting/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/ship-mate/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/signed-audit-trails/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/skill-forge-essentials/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/social-publishing/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/startup-business-analyst/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/systems-programming/skills/*/SKILL.md, plugins/ui-design/skills/*/SKILL.md.

Issue colours

Resolved from a deterministic hash of the owner name. Two accent tones are generated per issue and each is proven against its own ground before it ships: a single accent that passes AA on both light and dark paper is arithmetically impossible.

Heading repairs

1 repair applied to this chapter so the document has one h1 and no skipped levels:

Removed “Multi-Cloud Architecture”, a leading h1 that duplicated the chapter title.

Spec compliance

1 editorial note across 1 of 180 chapters. They are printed in the margin of each chapter rather than as errors here.

PostgreSQL Table Design — 1 note

Images

Images inside a chapter come from the upstream repository. Where the author gave no alternative text we mark the image decorative rather than inventing a description — a plausible caption we made up is worse than none for the reader who depends on it.

Marketplace

A plugin manifest is published at .claude-plugin/marketplace.json by Seth Hobson, declaring 95 plugins. It is read for editorial metadata only — never as the skill index, which is always the repository tree.

Signal

Install counts come from skills.sh. They measure downloads, not quality, and an unranked repository is not an unread one.

Agent surfaces

The whole issue is available as one markdown document at /wshobson/agents.md, and each chapter at its own .md URL.

Publication

Set by Skills Docs from the source repository. Body text is Literata at the reader’s chosen size and measure; code is Geist Mono. Nothing on this page was written by us except this paragraph.