It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a couple of years since I last sat down with Richard Campbell on RunAs Radio. Technology moves fast, but the cloud landscape has matured in ways that were only just beginning during my last visit.
I recently joined Richard for my third appearance on the show (Episode #1025) to talk about a challenge that is becoming the “new normal” for major SaaS providers: Expanding a Cloud-Native stack across multiple clouds.
From Single-Cloud Roots to Multi-Cloud Reality
At Jamf, we’ve built a powerful reputation for managing Apple devices at scale. Historically, our SaaS product was rooted in AWS. However, as our customer base grows, now serving over 70k+ customers worldwide the demand for flexibility grows with it.
In this episode, we discuss the journey of bringing those SaaS workloads to Azure and AKS. It isn’t just about “moving” code; it’s about architecting for consistency without losing the unique benefits of each cloud provider.
Kubernetes: The Common Ground (But Not the Whole Story)
One of the key takeaways from our chat is that while Kubernetes (AKS, EKS, GKE) provides the common operating system for the modern cloud, it isn’t a “magic wand” for multi-cloud.
To achieve true consistency, you have to look past the orchestrator and focus on the surrounding ecosystem. We dove into the complexities of:
- IaC & Deployment: Why tools like OpenTofu are becoming essential for maintaining cloud-agnostic deployments.
- Observability: Using Prometheus and Grafana to ensure that your SRE teams see the same data regardless of whether the backend is Azure or AWS.
- Identity: Navigating the friction between different identity providers to ensure a seamless experience for the end user and how platforms like Okta support this.
The Docker & AI Connection
We couldn’t have a conversation in 2026 without touching on the elephant in the room: AI. As a Microsoft MVP focused on AKS and a Docker Captain, I’ve been watching closely how the Kubernetes and container ecosystem is evolving to support AI/ML workloads. Richard and I spent some time discussing how Docker, Inc. is positioning itself in this space and how developers can leverage these tools to build AI-ready applications without getting locked into a single vendor’s proprietary stack.
Reflections on a Maturing Landscape
Coming back to RunAs Radio for a third time allowed me to reflect on just how much our industry has shifted. We’ve moved past the “is the cloud safe?” phase and into the “how do we optimize for a multi-cloud world?” phase.
Whether you are a platform engineer, a developer, or a technical leader, the lessons I’ve learned at Accenture, Microsoft, helping startups, and now at Jamf while scaling across multple clouds are applicable to almost any modern enterprise.
You can listen to the full episode here: RunAs Radio #1025: SaaS on Multiple Clouds with Steve Buchanan
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Is your organization looking at multi-cloud for SaaS, or are you doubling down on a single provider?
