The case for multicloud: Lessons from the CrowdStrike outage

A July 18 software update from CrowdStrike caused a massive IT outage, leading to chaos across airports, banks, stock exchanges, hospitals, and more. This incident, marked by widespread occurrences of the “blue screen of death” (BSOD), highlighted the vulnerability of relying on a single cloud provider.

Most of us know someone affected by this outage, although systems are returning to normal as I write this article. Flights were canceled, banks could not make deposits, and patients could not get hospital treatment. That’s scary post-apocalypse stuff. This outage was not the result of a malicious act, but it proves we’re not ready to face a substantial cyberattack and the far-reaching damage it could cause.

The disruption of services worldwide showcased the significant risk of single-provider dependency and underscored the crucial need for enterprises to reconsider their cloud strategies. Namely, how can we make sure this doesn’t happen again? It’s the most common question I’m receiving right now, and it’s easy to answer: It’s time to move toward multicloud computing.