Multi-Cloud Deployment: Running Your App on AWS, Azure, and GCP

Introduction: Why Multi-Cloud Matters

Imagine you are an e-commerce company running your web application on AWS. One day, AWS experiences an outage, and your services go down, leading to revenue loss and customer frustration. Now, what if your application was also deployed on Azure and GCP? Your services would stay online, providing uninterrupted service to your users. This is the power of multi-cloud deployment—spreading your infrastructure across multiple cloud providers for high availability, redundancy, and cost optimization.

With businesses adopting DevOps practices, multi-cloud strategies are becoming essential for reliability, compliance, and avoiding vendor lock-in. In this guide, we'll walk through deploying a web application across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using Terraform, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines.

What is Multi-Cloud Deployment?

Multi-cloud deployment refers to using two or more cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) to host applications, services, and infrastructure. This approach provides:

• Resilience & Redundancy: Avoids downtime caused by a single provider.
• Performance Optimization: Deploy services closer to users based on geography.
• Cost Savings: Takes advantage of pricing differences across clouds.
• Regulatory Compliance: Helps meet data sovereignty requirements.

Step-by-Step Multi-Cloud Deployment

We’ll deploy a Node.js web application using Kubernetes on AWS, Azure, and GCP with Terraform and GitHub Actions for automation.

1. Set Up Your Cloud Accounts

Create accounts on AWS, Azure, and GCP, and install their respective CLI tools:

# Install AWS CLI
yum install aws-cli -y  # or apt install awscli -y
aws configure

# Install Azure CLI
curl -sL https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCLIDeb | sudo bash
az login

# Install GCP CLI
curl https://sdk.cloud.google.com | bash
gcloud auth login

2. Provision Kubernetes Clusters with Terraform

Terraform AWS EKS Setup

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

resource "aws_eks_cluster" "eks" {
  name     = "multi-cloud-cluster"
  role_arn = aws_iam_role.eks_role.arn
}

Terraform Azure AKS Setup

provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

resource "azurerm_kubernetes_cluster" "aks" {
  name                = "multi-cloud-cluster"
  location            = "East US"
  resource_group_name = "multi-cloud-rg"
}

Terraform GCP GKE Setup

provider "google" {
  project = "my-gcp-project"
  region  = "us-central1"
}

resource "google_container_cluster" "gke" {
  name     = "multi-cloud-cluster"
}

3. Deploy the App to Kubernetes

Once the clusters are ready, deploy a Node.js app to all three clouds:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: node-app
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: node-app
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: node-app
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: node-app
        image: my-dockerhub-user/node-app:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 3000

Apply this to AWS, Azure, and GCP:

kubectl apply -f node-app-deployment.yaml --context aws
kubectl apply -f node-app-deployment.yaml --context azure
kubectl apply -f node-app-deployment.yaml --context gcp

Multi-Cloud CI/CD with Jenkins & Docker

1. Install Jenkins & Docker

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y docker.io jenkins
sudo systemctl start jenkins && sudo systemctl enable jenkins

2. Create a Jenkinsfile for Multi-Cloud Deployment

pipeline {
    agent any
    stages {
        stage('Build') {
            steps {
                sh 'docker build -t my-dockerhub-user/node-app:latest .'
            }
        }
        stage('Push to DockerHub') {
            steps {
                sh 'docker push my-dockerhub-user/node-app:latest'
            }
        }
        stage('Deploy to AWS, Azure, and GCP') {
            steps {
                sh 'kubectl apply -f node-app-deployment.yaml --context aws'
                sh 'kubectl apply -f node-app-deployment.yaml --context azure'
                sh 'kubectl apply -f node-app-deployment.yaml --context gcp'
            }
        }
    }
}

Real-World Use Cases

Company	Use Case	Cloud Providers Used
Netflix	Global content delivery	AWS, GCP
Uber	Real-time ride tracking	AWS, Azure
Twitter	Scalable social media backend	AWS, GCP

Multi-Cloud vs Single Cloud

Feature	Multi-Cloud	Single Cloud
Availability	High	Moderate
Cost Efficiency	Optimized	Vendor dependent
Complexity	High	Low

Troubleshooting Tips

• Issue: kubectl not working
  • Fix: export KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config
• Issue: Docker image not found
  • Fix: Ensure DockerHub credentials are correct in Jenkins.

Conclusion & Call to Action

Multi-cloud deployment enhances resilience, performance, and cost efficiency. While complex, tools like Terraform, Kubernetes, and Jenkins simplify the process. What do you think? Have you tried deploying across multiple clouds? Comment below!

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Resources & Further Reading

• AWS EKS Documentation
• Azure AKS Documentation
• GCP GKE Documentation