Multi-Cloud Migration Readiness Checklist
A readiness checklist for multi-cloud that first tests the business driver, then assesses portability decisions, unified IaC, identity, observability, networking, and a normalized cross-cloud cost model.
When to Use This Checklist
Use this before committing to a multi-cloud strategy, whether spanning AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud for resilience, regulatory reasons, or after an acquisition. Multi-cloud multiplies operational cost and complexity, so the first job of this checklist is to confirm the business driver justifies it. Many organizations are better served by a strong single-cloud posture.
If the driver is real, the checklist then assesses whether you can actually operate across providers without doubling toil.
How to Use This Checklist
Start by writing down the business driver in concrete terms; "avoid lock-in" alone rarely justifies the cost. Choose a deliberate pattern: full portability is expensive, best-of-breed uses each provider's strengths, and per-tenant isolates customers by cloud. Decide explicitly which components must be portable, because forcing everything to a lowest-common-denominator wastes each provider's advantages.
Then check the operational fundamentals: unified IaC, identity, observability, and a normalized cost model. Pilot one workload across providers before scaling the strategy.
What Good Looks Like
A ready organization has a written, specific business driver and a chosen multi-cloud pattern. It knows which components are portable and which stay native, runs one IaC and CI/CD toolchain across providers, and has unified identity, observability, and cost reporting. Cross-cloud networking and egress costs are understood, data residency is planned, and a pilot workload has run successfully on both providers before any scale-out.
Common Pitfalls
The largest pitfall is adopting multi-cloud without a real driver, paying double the operational cost for theoretical flexibility. Another is forcing full portability, abandoning the managed services that make each cloud valuable. Fragmented identity and observability across clouds creates blind spots and security gaps. Ignoring inter-cloud egress costs produces surprise bills. And underestimating the skills needed to operate two providers well stretches teams thin.
Related Resources
Use the cloud landing-zone and Terraform module patterns to standardize across providers, OpenTelemetry for unified observability, and FinOps practices for a normalized cost model. Zero-trust architecture helps unify identity across clouds.