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As defined by Gartner, a multi-cloud strategy is “the deliberate use of cloud services from multiple public cloud providers for the same general class of IT solutions or workloads — almost always IaaS and/or PaaS, not SaaS. Many organizations become “accidentally” multi-cloud (through inadequate governance, M&A or the like), rather than deliberately adopting a mult-icloud strategy. Being multicloud increases management and governance challenges, increases the complexity and cost of IT, and demands greater skills. However, a well-governed multi-cloud strategy can improve access to a breadth of technology choices and innovative best-of-breed capabilities.”
In 2025, multi-cloud strategies have evolved from an emerging trend into an operational reality. Gartner reports that 76% of enterprises now use more than one public cloud provider, not just for redundancy, but to harness best-of-breed capabilities from each platform. But here’s the catch: while multi-cloud brings flexibility, it also introduces management, cost, and security complexity.
Enterprise architects and IT decision-makers are caught in a balancing act, meeting performance demands, regulatory obligations, and vendor-agnostic architecture goals, while keeping infrastructure maintainable and budget-friendly. This is where mature, interoperable platforms like Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) are proving indispensable.
The multi-cloud environment is the foundation of enterprise modernization. The question for 2025 isn’t “should we go multi-cloud?”…it’s “how do we do it securely, cost-effectively, and without chaos?”
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Multi-Cloud Momentum: Trends Shaping 2025 and Beyond
Enterprise demand for multi-cloud strategies has matured significantly in the past 24 months. What was once a cautious exploration of “best-of-breed” tools is now a necessity for resilience, performance, and compliance. From manufacturing floors to trading platforms, IT leaders are no longer asking if they need a multi-cloud approach; they’re refining how to do it securely, cost-effectively, and with minimal disruption.
Industry Trends
- 93% of enterprises now operate in multi-cloud environments, up from 76% just three years ago. Hybrid and multi-cloud adoption is being driven by a combination of performance needs, regional data residency requirements, and best-in-class tool selection.
- 81% of enterprises cite cost optimization as a primary driver for their multi-cloud strategy, but only 25% believe they’re realizing full ROI from their investments. This signals an urgent need for smarter workload placement and governance.
- In financial services, multi-cloud is being used to balance latency-sensitive workloads across regions for regulatory and client-facing applications.
- Manufacturing enterprises are integrating cloud-native AI services across clouds to streamline predictive maintenance and quality control, especially in multi-plant operations where localized providers are needed for edge data processing.
- Among professional services, 65% of firms cite the ability to avoid vendor lock-in as a key driver for multi-cloud. For these knowledge-based firms, flexibility and client data compliance across jurisdictions are paramount.
Oracle continues to evolve its interoperability-first model, providing integrations with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud through services like Oracle Interconnect, Oracle Database@Azure, and OCI FastConnect. These are helping enterprises reduce data egress fees, maintain low-latency integrations, and optimize AI/ML workloads across clouds.
How Oracle Enables Multicloud Success
In a landscape where cloud coexistence is the norm, Oracle has positioned itself as a multicloud enabler, not just a provider. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure doesn’t force an all-or-nothing migration. Instead, it facilitates strategic workload placement, seamless connectivity, and shared governance across major clouds like Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.
Oracle Interconnect for Microsoft Azure: 2ms Latency, Shared Services
Oracle’s deep partnership with Microsoft offers one of the most mature multicloud implementations to date. The OCI-Azure Interconnect enables customers to run workloads across both clouds with:
- ~2-millisecond latency, backed by private, physical connections between OCI and Azure regions【source 1†Oracle†L1-L5】.
- Joint services like Azure Active Directory and OCI Identity and Access Management (IAM) that simplify security.
- Low data egress costs and aligned SLAs.
This tight integration allows enterprises to deploy Oracle Database on OCI while connecting to analytics or AI services on Azure, without costly refactoring or latency penalties.
Oracle’s Multicloud Expansion with AWS and Google Cloud
In September 2024, Oracle announced expanded multicloud capabilities across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, enabling customers to deploy Oracle Database and applications natively across all three clouds.
This announcement underscores Oracle’s commitment to:
- Letting workloads reside in the best-fit cloud, regardless of vendor.
- Reducing lock-in by enabling customers to combine OCI’s core infrastructure with other clouds’ application ecosystems.
- Creating low-latency, high-throughput interconnections across clouds, backed by SLAs.
Multicloud Native = Modern Cloud Strategy
As multicloud moves from theory to reality, OCI provides the infrastructure needed to make it viable:
- Oracle Database@Azure allows customers to run mission-critical Oracle workloads side-by-side with Azure services.
- OCI FastConnect and Azure ExpressRoute ensure private, scalable connections.
- Unified governance across clouds reduces complexity and cost of managing hybrid environments.
Oracle’s multicloud approach isn’t about competing. It’s about coexisting where it adds the most value. It’s a pragmatic answer to the hybrid IT complexity that CIOs, DBAs, and architects now face.
Use Cases & Best Practices by Industry and Persona
Multi-cloud is becoming a strategic necessity across industries and roles. Here’s how some of the most prominent verticals and personas are adapting multi-cloud strategies for innovation, compliance, and resilience.
Manufacturing
App Owner: In a sector where factory uptime, real-time telemetry, and global supply chain visibility are mission-critical, app owners turn to multi-cloud to increase reliability and agility. By hosting core Oracle E-Business Suite workloads in OCI while leveraging Azure for analytics and Google Cloud for ML models (like predictive maintenance), they reduce downtime and optimize operations.
Best Practice: Use OCI for production ERP and digital twin apps, and route non-critical workloads (R&D, testing, simulation) to cost-effective public clouds.
Enterprise Architect: With IoT systems generating massive data volumes, architects must design scalable and modular multi-cloud frameworks. A virtual cloud network (VCN) in OCI allows private IP connectivity to other clouds, streamlining integrations with AWS IoT or Azure Synapse.
Best Practice: Adopt shared-responsibility models and standardized API gateways for consistent control over edge-to-cloud connectivity.
Financial Services
DBA: Regulations like GDPR, PCI DSS, and OCC guidelines require stringent data residency and encryption policies. Many DBAs opt for multi-region OCI Autonomous Databases, with backups or replicas on AWS S3 for additional durability and compliance.
Best Practice: Use Oracle Data Safe and native encryption (TDE, Vault) across all clouds to ensure unified audit logging and policy enforcement.
App Owner: App owners face pressure to deliver fintech-level experiences while ensuring zero service disruption. By splitting workloads,like real-time payments in OCI and customer analytics on AWS,they can scale innovation without full-stack migrations.
Best Practice: Leverage multi-cloud observability platforms like Oracle Cloud Observability and Management or third-party APM tools for cross-cloud SLA assurance.
Professional Services
Enterprise Architect: Digital consulting, HR tech, and service automation platforms require elastic environments to scale on demand. Multi-cloud enables regional workload distribution. For example, hosting client-sensitive data in OCI Frankfurt while using GCP for AI-driven analytics dashboards.
Best Practice: Implement multi-cloud FinOps frameworks to track per-client cloud usage and map billables. Many Oracle partners now offer automated tagging for cost attribution.
DBA: Data governance across jurisdictions is paramount. DBAs often replicate core HR or CRM databases across OCI and Azure to meet data localization mandates and enable regional failover.
Best Practice: Use Oracle GoldenGate or Oracle Database Service for Azure (ODSA) to enable low-latency replication and hybrid query federation.
What’s Common Across All?
- Interconnectivity is king: Whether you’re pairing OCI with Azure via ODSA or using FastConnect with AWS Direct Connect, private low-latency links are the glue.
- Observability + Governance: Multi-cloud can’t work without standardized monitoring, tagging, logging, and policy management across platforms.
- Skills matter: Teams with multi-cloud certifications (OCI + AWS + Azure) outperform those working in silos.
As of 2025, 70% of enterprises use multiple public clouds, averaging 2.4 per org and most cite vendor lock-in avoidance and resiliency as their top motivators.
Overcoming Multi-Cloud Challenges
While multi-cloud unlocks agility, compliance, and innovation, it introduces real complexity, especially at enterprise scale. Here’s how today’s top organizations are tackling the top blockers:
Fragmented Security Posture
Challenge: Each cloud vendor comes with its own IAM, encryption model, and threat detection framework, often leaving security teams scrambling to maintain consistency across clouds.
Solution: Implement a unified cloud security strategy anchored in zero trust, least privilege, and end-to-end encryption. Platforms like Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Identity and Access Management (OCI IAM) integrate with Azure Active Directory or Okta for federated identity. Use Oracle Cloud Guard, Microsoft Defender, and AWS GuardDuty in tandem with shared telemetry via SIEMs like Splunk or Sentinel.
Complexity in Integration & Data Movement
Challenge: Moving data between clouds (or syncing apps and services) often leads to latency, redundancy, and unexpected egress costs.
Solution: Use cloud interconnects like Oracle Interconnect for Microsoft Azure, AWS Direct Connect, or Google Cloud Interconnect, paired with Oracle GoldenGate for seamless data replication. Many enterprise architects now architect with event-driven integration using tools like Oracle Integration Cloud, Kafka, or MuleSoft.
Pro Tip: Architect for “data gravity” and keep compute close to the data to reduce movement and improve latency.
Lack of Unified Observability & Cost Control
Challenge: Without centralized dashboards, teams lose track of performance issues, cost spikes, or idle workloads spread across multiple clouds.
Solution: Deploy cloud-native observability tools that aggregate telemetry across clouds:
- Oracle Cloud Observability and Management
- Azure Monitor
- AWS CloudWatch
- Third-party tools like Datadog or New Relic
For spend, implement FinOps frameworks with tools like CloudHealth, Apptio, or native cost management consoles. Align tagging policies, enforce budgets, and share reports with IT and finance.
Skills Gaps Across Cloud Platforms
Challenge: Hiring or upskilling engineers across OCI, AWS, Azure, and GCP is costly and time-intensive.
Solution: Cross-train teams using certified learning paths from Oracle University, AWS Skill Builder, and Microsoft Learn. Encourage multi-cloud certifications and build center of excellence (CoE) models to spread expertise across business units.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- What are the biggest benefits of a multi-cloud strategy in 2025?
Multi-cloud enables organizations to optimize performance, cost, and compliance by selecting the best-fit cloud for each workload. It also reduces vendor lock-in and strengthens business continuity.
- Isn’t multi-cloud more expensive and harder to manage?
Without proper planning, yes, but with unified cost management, central governance, and integration tools (e.g., OCI Interconnect for Azure), the benefits far outweigh the overhead.
- Is OCI compatible with other major clouds like AWS or Azure?
Yes! Oracle offers native interconnects, shared identity frameworks, and cross-cloud orchestration tools, including direct support for hybrid workloads.
- Who should lead a multi-cloud initiative internally?
It’s often a joint effort between the Enterprise Architect, App Owner, DBA, and CISO, coordinated via a Cloud Center of Excellence (CoE) or the Office of the CIO/CTO.
