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Multi-cloud Operations

Operational patterns for running, observing, and recovering multi-cloud serverless applications at scale.

Simple Explanation​

What it is​

This lesson focuses on the day-to-day reality of running services across two clouds.

Why we need it​

Multi-cloud only helps if you can monitor, troubleshoot, and recover quickly in both environments.

Benefits​

  • Clearer operational playbooks across providers.
  • Better incident response when one cloud degrades.

Tradeoffs​

  • More tooling to integrate.
  • More training for teams.

Real-world examples (architecture only)​

  • Shared monitoring -> Unified dashboards -> Faster triage.
  • Cross-cloud DR -> Periodic failover drills.

Unified observability

What This Lesson Covers​

  • Cross-cloud monitoring and alert routing
  • Deployment coordination across providers
  • Data replication strategies
  • Identity and secret management differences
  • Runbooks and incident response

Core Operational Areas​

  1. Observability

    • Standardize log format across clouds
    • Use consistent metric names for key signals

  2. Deployments

    • Promote the same artifact to each cloud
    • Use environment parity checks (runtime, config, timeouts)

  3. Data Replication

    • Choose source-of-truth per domain
    • Define acceptable replication lag
    • Automate replay after outages

  4. Identity & Access

    • Separate service identities per cloud
    • Rotate keys and avoid long-lived secrets

  5. Runbooks

    • Document failover steps and recovery criteria
    • Practice failover quarterly

Python Example: Unified Health Check​

import requests


def check_endpoint(url):
	 try:
		  response = requests.get(url, timeout=5)
		  return response.status_code == 200
	 except Exception:
		  return False


def health_report():
	 return {
		  "aws": check_endpoint("https://aws.example.com/health"),
		  "gcp": check_endpoint("https://gcp.example.com/health"),
	 }

Failure Playbook (Outline)​

  1. Detect outage (alerts + health checks)
  2. Confirm scope (single region or provider)
  3. Freeze deployments
  4. Fail over traffic
  5. Validate core user flows
  6. Post-incident review

Project​

Create a cross-cloud operations checklist.

Deliverables:

  • Monitoring signals and alert routes
  • Failover triggers and rollback steps
  • Data replication approach and RPO/RTO targets

Email your work to [email protected].

References​