Is it time to challenge the Cloud first mind set?
Cloud-first has become more than just a catchphrase in technology, it is an established IT strategy where cloud infrastructure is the default solution for modern businesses, including redundancy and backup. Yet, the reality of recent high-profile outages at AWS and Azure means it is time to reconsider whether relying solely on cloud-first is wise, and to explore what resilient alternatives exist today.computing+2
Cloud-First as the modern default
A cloud-first strategy means organisations prioritise cloud technologies for new applications, platforms, and infrastructure needs. The reasoning is clear:simplilearn+1
- Reduced capital expenditure through pay-as-you-go models
- Faster deployments, helping teams to stay agile
- Improved accessibility for remote working
- Easier scalability as business needs change
- Enhanced backup and recovery features superblocks+1
Cloud-first approaches have transformed how companies operate, making them more flexible and digital-ready, with cloud now the baseline for business continuity.boomi
Recent outages challenge cloud reliability
However, the core assumption of cloud-first—unfailing availability—was recently shaken. In late October 2025, both Azure and AWS suffered outages: Microsoft’s Azure was down for hours owing to a configuration change and DNS failures, affecting global productivity applications and airport systems. The previous week, AWS experienced an outage because of a control plane software bug, resulting in disruption to thousands of sites and online services.news.sky+3
Both incidents highlighted the risk of single points of failure in hyperscale clouds and remind businesses that even the giants struggle to guarantee perfect uptime. The haste to cloud-first, especially for redundancy and backup, may create hidden risks to business continuity if not managed carefully.independent+1
Expanded risk profile for hyperscale clouds
As these mega-providers have become the backbone of global digital infrastructure, they have naturally become the prime targets for sophisticated threat actors. The combination of huge multi-tenant environments and rapid adoption of AI-powered services has produced new vulnerabilities:
- Research shows adoption of AI in cloud environments is widespread, but 62% of organisations have at least one vulnerable AI package exposed, with major security flaws capable of enabling remote code execution in production assets.
- Large-scale cloud providers frequently operate highly complex environments, and security researchers now routinely report dozens of newly discovered vulnerabilities each year in AWS, Azure and GCP.
- AI-driven threats and Ransomware-as-a-Service attacks are rising sharply, with enterprise cloud environments at increased risk due to their concentration of valuable data and broad attack surfaces.
Why enterprise clouds carry greater risk than ever
The dominant position of providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP means that systemic outages, data breaches, and successful AI-enabled cyberattacks have far-reaching, potentially global impact. Attackers can exploit vulnerabilities in shared infrastructure to affect thousands of businesses simultaneously. Responding to these modern risks requires continuous monitoring, rapid patch management, and rethinking disaster recovery—especially as businesses scale their reliance on cloud platforms for redundancy and backup.
Should we challenge Cloud-First Mentality?
Given these vulnerabilities, technology leaders ought to re-assess the default cloud-first mentality. The pros remain powerful, but blind adoption can lead to:
- Increased dependency on a limited pool of vendors
- Potential for simultaneous loss of backup and production systems during platform-wide outages
- Security and regulatory concerns where control is partially outsourcedphoenixnap+1
A more balanced approach could include hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, ensuring assets are spread across multiple cloud providers, reducing vendor lock-in, and improving resilience.boomi
Alternatives to Cloud-First
There are a number of robust alternatives to an exclusive cloud-first strategy:
| Solution | Key Benefits | Drawbacks |
| On-Premises | Full control, lower long-term cost, compliant | High upfront cost, harder to scale |
| Colocation | Shared data centre with custom control | Cost efficiency depends on scale |
| Bare Metal Cloud | Dedicated servers, predictable performance | Less managed, needs sysadmin expertise |
| Edge/Fog/Mesh | High reliability, local latency, no central fail | Complex to deploy, best for specific uses |
| Multi-Cloud | Redundancy, avoids vendor lock-in | Complex management, higher operational cost |
On-premises infrastructure, colocation, bare metal hosting, and mesh networks all provide ways to maintain critical systems outside of hyperscale clouds, each with their own risk/reward profiles. Multi-cloud and hybrid deployments allow for more diversified redundancy, reducing the likelihood that widespread outages will affect business continuity.servers+2
The way forward
The cloud-first model has transformed efficiency and scale, but, as recent outages have shown, it should not be adopted uncritically. Businesses should challenge their reliance on single vendors, leverage hybrid and multi-cloud approaches, and consider resilient alternatives—especially for redundancy and backup systems—ensuring technology works for them, even when the cloud does not.computing+2