For applications that must stay up, Control Plane runs workloads active-active across regions and clouds with networking built in: a global endpoint that routes each request to the nearest healthy location, mTLS between services, and Cloud Wormhole, Control Plane’s agent-based connectivity to private networks. To join whole networks, hyperscaler transit services, multicloud networking software, and interconnection fabrics each fit different situations.
Disclosure: Control Plane publishes this guide.
TL;DR
- Control Plane: best for applications that must stay available in one region or across regions and clouds, with no gateways, tunnels, or route tables to run.
- Google Cloud networking: best for global applications anchored in Google Cloud.
- AWS networking: best for large AWS estates spanning many regions and accounts.
- Azure networking: best for hub-and-spoke topologies in Azure-centric environments.
- Aviatrix: best for a multicloud transit layer with deep visibility and troubleshooting.
- Alkira: best for multicloud networking consumed as a service.
- Cisco Multicloud Defense: best for unified cloud firewall policy across clouds.
- Equinix Fabric: best for private, high-bandwidth links between clouds, data centers, and partners.
- Megaport: best for on-demand virtual cross-connects to multiple clouds.
- Cloudflare Load Balancing: best for traffic steering in front of existing deployments.
What makes multi-region networking flexible?
Seven factors determine flexibility:
- Regions and clouds covered. Can you reach every region you need today and add more without re-architecting, across AWS, GCP, Azure, and on premises?
- Network joins or application routing. Joining VPCs and VNets at layer 3 differs from routing requests at layer 4 or layer 7. Many applications need only the second.
- Overlapping IP ranges. Mergers and multi-cloud growth make CIDR conflicts common. Check how each option handles them.
- Failover and health-checked routing. Automatic failover needs health checks, a routing layer that shifts traffic, and capacity already running in the target location.
- Security model. Compare encryption in transit, identity-based access, segmentation, and firewall defaults.
- Operations staffing. Some options need a network engineering team. Others run the routing, upgrades, and monitoring for you.
- Cost model. Data transfer, gateway hours, attachments, ports, licenses, and staff time all add up.
The ranked list
1. Control Plane
What it is. Control Plane is the unbreakable platform for running production workloads. It runs serverless, standard, stateful, and cron workloads natively on AWS, GCP, and Azure, VM workloads on locations joined through Control Plane’s Managed Kubernetes, and workloads on Kubernetes clusters you already run or your own machines, including on premises, active-active across regions and clouds.
Best for. Applications that must stay available, whether they run in one region today or across regions and clouds. Teams on a single cloud or region get the same built-in firewall, mTLS, and global endpoint, and add locations later as a configuration change.
Key strengths. A workload deployed to Control Plane’s Global Virtual Cloud (GVC), a named set of locations across one or more clouds, runs active-active in every location of that GVC from one definition. A built-in global endpoint uses DNS geo-routing to send each request to the nearest healthy location. Adding a region or another cloud means adding a location to the GVC.
Every workload has a deny-by-default internal firewall. Internal traffic between workloads is encrypted with mTLS on a built-in service mesh, with certificates Control Plane manages. Workloads in different locations and clouds reach each other without VPC peering or VPN tunnels you manage.
Control Plane’s Cloud Wormhole connects workloads to any TCP endpoint in VPCs and other private networks, including on premises data centers. A Cloud Wormhole agent inside the private network holds a secure, persistent outbound connection to Control Plane, so no inbound ports open to the internet. Access is limited to the IP addresses or domain names and ports listed in the workload’s identity. Version 2 agents run active-active, so running two or more keeps the connection up if one fails. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see cross-cloud private networking.
The 99.999% availability SLA applies to workloads running at least two replicas in at least two locations. Those locations can be on different providers. During the October 20, 2025 AWS us-east-1 outage, Control Plane customers with us-east-1 in their GVC had workloads active and running in healthy locations within 10 seconds, according to Control Plane’s internal incident telemetry. See how to build active-active high availability across regions and clouds.
Customers typically cut compute costs 30 to 50 percent compared with running directly on AWS, GCP, or Azure. Control Plane is PCI DSS Level 1, SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and GDPR compliant.
Limitations. Control Plane networks the workloads it runs and the private endpoints they reach through Cloud Wormhole. To join whole corporate networks or branch offices at layer 3, pair it with multicloud networking software or a transit service.
Pricing model. You pay for the CPU and memory a workload reserves, with no contracts or minimums.
2. Google Cloud networking
What it is. Google Cloud’s networking includes global VPC networks, Cloud Load Balancing with a single anycast IP, Cross-Cloud Interconnect (dedicated links to AWS, Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Alibaba Cloud), and Network Connectivity Center.
Best for. Global applications anchored in Google Cloud.
Key strengths. A VPC network is a global resource, so regions share one network without peering. Cloud Load Balancing serves health-checked backends in any region behind one IP. Network Connectivity Center connects VPC networks and hybrid spokes (HA VPN, Interconnect, and router appliances for SD-WAN) through a central hub.
Limitations. Cross-Cloud Interconnect requires dedicated ports at locations where Google and the other provider are both present. Partner Cross-Cloud Interconnect for AWS removes the physical setup but covers AWS only.
Pricing model. Per-hour forwarding-rule charges and per-GB data processing for load balancers, interconnect port fees, and data transfer charges.
3. AWS networking
What it is. AWS offers Transit Gateway (a regional hub for VPCs and on premises networks), Cloud WAN (a managed global core network), Global Accelerator (anycast entry to AWS endpoints), Route 53 (DNS with health-checked routing), and AWS Interconnect – multicloud.
Best for. Large AWS estates with many VPCs across regions and accounts.
Key strengths. Transit Gateway connects VPCs and on premises networks in a region. Cloud WAN extends this globally with central policy and segments. Global Accelerator routes users over the AWS backbone to healthy endpoints. Route 53 supports latency-based, geolocation, geoproximity, weighted, and failover routing.
Limitations. Transit Gateway peering between regions uses static routes, and each hop adds attachment and data processing charges. Managed cross-cloud links through AWS Interconnect – multicloud are generally available for Google Cloud and in preview for Azure. Other clouds need Site-to-Site VPN or Direct Connect through a colocation partner.
Pricing model. Per-hour attachment and per-GB processing for Transit Gateway, core network edge and attachment hours for Cloud WAN, hourly and data transfer fees for Global Accelerator, and hosted zone, query, and health check pricing for Route 53.
4. Azure networking
What it is. Azure provides Virtual WAN (a managed hub-and-spoke service), global VNet peering, Azure Front Door (global HTTP load balancing), and Traffic Manager (DNS-based routing).
Best for. Hub-and-spoke topologies in Azure-centric environments with branch connectivity.
Key strengths. Virtual WAN combines VPN, ExpressRoute, and SD-WAN connectivity in managed hubs with automated routing. Global VNet peering connects VNets in any region with no gateways. Front Door adds health-probed global load balancing with an integrated WAF.
Limitations. VNet peering is non-transitive, so spoke-to-spoke traffic needs a hub (Virtual WAN or a network virtual appliance). Connecting to other clouds uses ExpressRoute through a colocation provider or VPN.
Pricing model. Hub and connection unit hours for Virtual WAN, per-GB charges for VNet peering, and a monthly base fee plus request and data transfer pricing for Front Door.
5. Aviatrix
What it is. Aviatrix builds encrypted transit networks across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and OCI, with central visibility and security. Gartner tracks this category as multicloud networking software.
Best for. Network teams that want one transit layer with deep operational visibility across clouds.
Key strengths. Gateways in each cloud run in HA pairs and handle encrypted tunnels, BGP routing, segmentation, and NAT for overlapping CIDRs. CoPilot provides topology views, flow analytics, and latency monitoring. Distributed Cloud Firewall adds east-west and egress policy.
Limitations. Gateway instances run in your cloud accounts and add compute cost. The controller and CoPilot are either self-hosted or operated by Aviatrix with Aviatrix PaaS. Designing the transit network takes networking expertise.
Pricing model. Subscription through the AWS or Azure Marketplace or a direct contract, plus the cloud compute cost of gateway instances.
6. Alkira
What it is. Alkira offers multicloud networking as a service, with cloud exchange points (CXPs) that act as virtual hubs in cloud regions.
Best for. Organizations that want multicloud networking without deploying gateway appliances.
Key strengths. Alkira runs the CXPs. It connects on premises sites over IPsec or SD-WAN, inserts third-party firewalls inline, applies NAT for overlapping ranges, and provides intent-based policy and end-to-end visibility.
Limitations. Traffic passes through Alkira’s CXPs, which adds a hop and depends on CXP locations.
Pricing model. Subscription; contact Alkira for pricing.
7. Cisco Multicloud Defense
What it is. Cisco Multicloud Defense provides cloud firewall and security policy across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and OCI from a SaaS controller.
Best for. Enterprises with Cisco security investments that need one cloud firewall policy across clouds.
Key strengths. Gateways in each cloud inspect ingress, egress, and east-west traffic, with IDS/IPS, WAF, and FQDN filtering. Policy is managed centrally with tag-based rules, and gateways scale automatically.
Limitations. It is a security and policy layer. Routing between clouds comes from cloud networking or a transit product.
Pricing model. SaaS subscription (contact Cisco for pricing), plus cloud compute costs for gateway instances.
8. Equinix Fabric
What it is. Equinix Fabric is a software-defined interconnection service for private connections between clouds, data centers, networks, and service providers at Equinix facilities.
Best for. Private, high-bandwidth links between multiple clouds, on premises data centers, and partners.
Key strengths. Private connections to AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and many other providers, with redundant connections for high availability. Fabric Cloud Router adds layer 3 routing between clouds.
Limitations. Requires presence at or connectivity to an Equinix facility. It provides links; application routing, health checks, and failover logic sit elsewhere.
Pricing model. Port fees, bandwidth-based connection charges, and colocation costs.
9. Megaport
What it is. Megaport is a network-as-a-service platform for on-demand virtual cross-connects to cloud providers, data centers, and internet exchanges.
Best for. On-demand virtual cross-connects to several clouds.
Key strengths. Quick provisioning of connections to AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others. Megaport Cloud Router routes between clouds, and Megaport Virtual Edge hosts SD-WAN, virtual routers, and virtual firewalls.
Limitations. Megaport provides connectivity. Application routing and failover sit elsewhere.
Pricing model. Port and virtual cross-connect fees based on bandwidth, with term options set at order time.
10. Cloudflare Load Balancing
What it is. Cloudflare Load Balancing steers traffic across origins in any cloud or data center, with health checks, failover, and geographic routing.
Best for. Traffic steering in front of existing deployments without changing the underlying network.
Key strengths. Health-checked failover with geo and latency steering at Cloudflare’s edge, in DNS-only or proxied mode. Integrates with Cloudflare’s CDN, WAF, and DDoS protection, and reaches private origins through Cloudflare Tunnel.
Limitations. Steers traffic at Cloudflare’s edge (DNS, HTTP, and layer 4 through Spectrum). Backend-to-backend traffic between clouds needs separate networking.
Pricing model. Paid add-on. Cost rises with the number of endpoints, health-check regions, and steering options.
Comparison table
| Option | Category | Layer | Across clouds | On premises | Health-checked failover routing | What you operate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Control Plane | Platform with networking built in | Application (L7) and TCP (L4) | Yes (AWS, GCP, Azure, plus your own clusters and machines) | Yes (Cloud Wormhole, your own machines) | Yes (global endpoint, DNS geo-routing to nearest healthy location) | Your workloads and their locations; Cloud Wormhole agents where you reach private networks |
| Google Cloud networking | Hyperscaler | L3 to L7 | Via Cross-Cloud Interconnect or HA VPN | Via Cloud Interconnect or VPN | Yes (Cloud Load Balancing) | VPCs, load balancers, interconnects |
| AWS networking | Hyperscaler | L3 to L7 | Via AWS Interconnect – multicloud, VPN, or Direct Connect | Via Direct Connect or VPN | Yes (Route 53, Global Accelerator) | Transit Gateways, Cloud WAN, VPCs |
| Azure networking | Hyperscaler | L3 to L7 | Via ExpressRoute or VPN | Via ExpressRoute or VPN | Yes (Front Door, Traffic Manager) | Virtual WAN hubs, VNets, peerings |
| Aviatrix | Multicloud networking software | L3/4 | Yes | Yes (IPsec, BGP) | Gateway HA and route failover | Gateways in each cloud; controller self-hosted or Aviatrix-managed |
| Alkira | Multicloud networking as a service | L3/4 | Yes | Yes (IPsec, SD-WAN) | Network-level failover run by Alkira; no app health checks | Policy; Alkira runs the CXPs |
| Cisco Multicloud Defense | Multicloud network security | L3 to L7 inspection | Security policy across clouds | Cloud only | Gateway autoscaling only; no app health checks | Gateways and policy |
| Equinix Fabric | Interconnection fabric | L2 circuits; L3 via Fabric Cloud Router | Yes | Yes | BGP failover across redundant links; no app health checks | Ports, connections, colocation |
| Megaport | Interconnection fabric | L2 circuits; L3 via Megaport Cloud Router | Yes | Yes | BGP failover across redundant links; no app health checks | Ports, virtual cross-connects |
| Cloudflare Load Balancing | Edge traffic layer | DNS, L7, and L4 (Spectrum) | Yes (any origin) | Yes (any origin) | Yes | DNS records, steering rules |
Pick by situation
| If you need | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| An application that must stay up in one region or across regions and clouds | Control Plane | Active-active workloads, global endpoint, mTLS, Cloud Wormhole, and a 99.999% SLA for workloads with at least two replicas in at least two locations. You run no gateways, tunnels, or route tables. See how to add a second cloud provider for failover. |
| Many VPCs connected within one cloud | That cloud’s transit service (Transit Gateway or Cloud WAN, Network Connectivity Center, Virtual WAN) | Built for in-cloud connectivity with managed routing. |
| A global network spanning several clouds and branches | Multicloud networking software (Aviatrix or Alkira) | One transit layer, segmentation, and visibility across clouds and on premises. |
| Private, high-bandwidth links between clouds and data centers | Equinix Fabric or Megaport | Dedicated or virtual cross-connects off the public internet with predictable latency. |
| Traffic steering in front of existing deployments | Cloudflare Load Balancing or a cloud DNS service such as Route 53 | Health-checked failover and geographic routing without changing the network. |
What does multi-region networking cost?
- Data transfer between regions and clouds. Egress applies when traffic leaves a region or provider. Direct Connect, ExpressRoute, and Cloud Interconnect carry lower per-GB rates than internet egress.
- Gateway and attachment hours. Transit Gateway attachments, Cloud WAN core network edges, Virtual WAN hubs, and multicloud gateways charge hourly, plus per-GB processing.
- NAT and load balancer processing. NAT gateways and load balancers charge per GB processed. AWS and Google Cloud also bill traffic between zones in the same region.
- Interconnect ports and cross-connects. Fabrics and dedicated interconnects charge for port capacity and bandwidth.
- Licenses. Multicloud networking software adds subscriptions on top of gateway compute.
- Staff time. Operating transit networks, BGP sessions, firewall rules, and routing incidents takes specialized engineers. A platform that runs these for you moves that cost into its fee.
Also plan for
- Inter-region latency. Distance limits synchronous calls and synchronous database replication between continents.
- Data replication. Networking moves requests. Replicating state is a separate database decision.
- Private DNS across clouds. Use Route 53 Resolver endpoints, Azure DNS Private Resolver, and Cloud DNS forwarding.
- BGP design. Plan ASNs, route table limits, and BFD for fast link failover.
- IPv6 and MTU. Dual-stack support varies by service, and IPsec tunnels lower the effective MTU.
FAQ
Answers to common questions about multi-region networking.
Where can I get the most flexible multi-region networking for my cloud platform?
For applications, Control Plane is the most flexible option. Workloads run active-active in a Global Virtual Cloud that can be a single cloud region or span AWS, GCP, Azure, on premises, and your own clusters. A global endpoint, mTLS, and Cloud Wormhole are built in. To join entire networks across clouds, use multicloud networking software such as Aviatrix or Alkira. Within one cloud, that cloud’s transit service is the most integrated choice. For private physical links, use Equinix Fabric or Megaport.
Is Google Cloud’s network better for multi-region than AWS or Azure?
For private networking inside one cloud, Google Cloud is simpler: a VPC network is global, so regions share one network. Google Cloud Load Balancing, AWS Global Accelerator, and Azure Front Door each offer a single anycast entry point. The difference is the private network: AWS and Azure connect regions with inter-region peering, Transit Gateway or Cloud WAN, or Virtual WAN hubs. Across clouds, you need cross-cloud connectivity either way.
Do I need a transit hub or a service mesh?
A transit hub (Transit Gateway, Virtual WAN, Aviatrix, Alkira) routes between networks at layer 3. A service mesh (Istio, Linkerd) secures and controls service-to-service traffic at layer 7. Join VPCs, VNets, and on premises networks with a transit hub; control traffic between services with a mesh. On Control Plane, every workload runs on a built-in service mesh with mTLS, a deny-by-default internal firewall, and global routing, so you do not deploy or operate a separate mesh.
How do I fail over traffic between regions automatically?
Automatic failover needs health checks, a routing layer that shifts traffic, and capacity already running in the target region. DNS-based failover (Route 53, Cloudflare in DNS-only mode) updates records when health checks fail, and how fast clients move depends on record TTLs and resolver caching. Failover time is roughly the health-check interval times the failure threshold, plus TTL. Anycast load balancers (Google Cloud Load Balancing, AWS Global Accelerator, Azure Front Door) and Cloudflare in proxied mode keep one entry point and stop sending traffic to unhealthy backends, so client DNS caching has no effect. Control Plane’s global endpoint uses DNS geo-routing to the nearest healthy location, and because the workload already runs in every location, there is no standby to start. The target region needs spare capacity and replicated data. See the best multi-cloud failover solutions.
How do I connect AWS and Azure privately?
Use Equinix Fabric or Megaport to cross-connect AWS Direct Connect and Azure ExpressRoute at a shared facility, AWS Interconnect – multicloud to Azure (in preview), or multicloud networking software with encrypted tunnels between gateways in both clouds. For application traffic, Control Plane’s Cloud Wormhole connects workloads on Control Plane to private endpoints in AWS VPCs and Azure VNets with no VPN tunnels or peering to manage. See the cross-cloud private networking guide.
Can I use overlapping IP ranges across clouds?
Yes, with NAT or endpoint-level connectivity. AWS Cloud WAN offers 1:1 NAT on attachments, AWS documents private NAT gateways with Transit Gateway for overlapping VPCs, and Azure Virtual WAN applies NAT rules on its site-to-site VPN gateway. Google Cloud Private NAT does not translate to overlapping subnets, so those need re-addressing or third-party NAT. Aviatrix and Alkira apply NAT in their transit networks. Endpoint-level connectivity, such as Control Plane’s Cloud Wormhole, avoids joining networks at the IP layer: a workload reaches a specific private endpoint through an agent inside that network, so the networks never exchange routes.
How does Control Plane handle multi-region networking?
On Control Plane, multi-region networking is part of the Global Virtual Cloud (GVC). Deploy a workload to a GVC with locations in, for example, AWS us-east-1, GCP europe-west1, and Azure eastus2, and it runs in all three from one definition behind one global endpoint. Traffic between locations stays on Control Plane’s internal mesh. Cloud Wormhole reaches private resources in your VPCs, VNets, and data centers. Adding a location, in the same cloud or a different one, is a change to the GVC.
Which hyperscaler connects to other clouds most directly?
Google Cloud’s Cross-Cloud Interconnect offers dedicated links to AWS, Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Alibaba Cloud, and AWS Interconnect – multicloud is generally available for Google Cloud and in preview for Azure. Azure reaches other clouds through ExpressRoute at colocation facilities or VPN.
To run workloads active-active across regions and clouds with networking built in, talk to the Control Plane team or sign up free.
Originally published on the Control Plane blog.
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