-- CloudNova, a leader in cloud innovation, today released its latest research report highlighting a major shift in how engineering teams are designing and managing technology infrastructure. The findings reveal that modular, multi-platform stacks are rapidly becoming the preferred standard, as organizations seek greater flexibility, scalability, and resilience in their cloud strategies.
According to the report, more than 70% of surveyed engineering leaders noted that traditional monolithic systems no longer meet the needs of modern business environments. Instead, companies are embracing modular architectures that allow teams to integrate best-in-class tools across multiple platforms, creating a more agile and future-ready technology stack.
The Unbundling of The Cloud
Cloud unbundling refers to moving away from a monolithic provider strategy. Instead of consolidating everything with one vendor, teams compose infrastructure from a mix of:
● Specialized hosting platforms for databases, storage, and containers.
● Managed services with a developer-first design that cut setup and maintenance time.
● Regional providers that solve for compliance and residency rules.
HashiCorp’s 2024 State of Cloud Strategy Survey shows nearly eight in ten organizations are already using or planning multi-cloud. This adoption aligns with the rise of platform engineering, where infrastructure is standardized into reusable building blocks.
Why the Shift is Happening
The shift to modular stacks is motivated by real pressures:
● Rising costs and unpredictable billing. Engineering leaders struggle with opaque pricing models where storage retrieval, API calls, and data transfers accumulate in unexpected ways.
● Fear of vendor lock-in. Proprietary APIs and high egress fees make it costly to move between providers. UK regulators have examined this in detail: the CMA’s cloud services market investigation includes an egress fees working paper and customer evidence showing how charges can discourage multi-cloud adoption. The CMA’s provisional findings set out potential interventions now under consultation.
● Performance and proximity needs. Data gravity pushes latency-sensitive workloads closer to users or regulated regions.
● Developer productivity. Teams want services that plug directly into Git workflows without demanding full-time DevOps.
But unbundling also introduces trade-offs. Splitting workloads across multiple platforms increases operational complexity, encompassing monitoring, identity management, and compliance. Interoperability can be uneven when APIs and services don’t align perfectly, sometimes requiring additional integration work. And while developers gain flexibility, they also face the risk of tool sprawl and fractured workflows unless platform engineering practices maintain a consistent experience.
Modular Stacks are More Viable Now
Two shifts make unbundling practical in 2025:
● Infrastructure as code and GitOps. Tools like Terraform enable teams to declare infrastructure consistently across multiple providers. GitOps ties every change to a pull request, making pipelines auditable and repeatable.
● Stronger cost governance. FinOps is now standard across enterprises. The 2024 State of FinOps report reveals shifting priorities toward waste reduction and smarter commitments. Treating cost as a design input helps teams compare providers and prevent billing surprises.
Analyst coverage of Gartner’s trends warns of rising disillusionment with cloud value. By 2028, one in four organizations may report poor outcomes, typically due to weak governance and inadequate cost visibility. Modular design with clear accountability helps avoid that trap.
A Practical Blueprint for Your Team
The path to multi-platform doesn’t require a complete migration. Start small with a controlled rollout:
● Pick a candidate workflow: Choose something that clearly benefits from modularity, like a regional data store or a latency-sensitive API.
● Define the contract: Document SLIs, SLOs, and regulatory constraints before choosing providers.
● Codify everything, separating layers: Use Terraform to define infrastructure (servers, networks, databases) consistently across providers. For applications, connect deployments to GitOps controllers. Services like Hostman, which integrate directly with GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket, make application rollouts easier. For smaller pilots, a cheap VPS can provide a low-friction entry point without requiring a full DevOps team.
● Track and attribute costs: Tag resources and integrate into your FinOps cadence from day one to avoid surprises.
● Plan for data movement: Model egress paths, use caching to reduce transfer, and document exit ramps from managed services.
● Standardize ops: Maintain observability and identity consistency across providers, and conduct failover drills to validate recovery processes.
What Modular Stacks Deliver
Teams that implement modular approaches report tangible benefits:
● Faster project starts because platform teams can choose the best-fit provider for each workload.
● Explicit service contracts that reduce ambiguity.
● Sharper cost control from day-one tagging and unit economics.
The HashiCorp survey also linked higher platform maturity with better business outcomes.
Hostman in Context: An Example of Modular Platforms
The rise of modular platforms has created an opportunity for providers that prioritize speed, transparency, and developer-first design. Hostman is an example of this shift. It integrates directly with GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket, enabling teams to deploy applications straight from their repositories without the overhead of dedicated DevOps. In parallel, Hostman provides managed databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Kafka, that can be provisioned as separate services alongside applications.
What makes Hostman relevant is not just its features, but its alignment with what teams want from modular stacks: faster setup, transparent billing, and the freedom to mix tools without lock-in. In that sense, Hostman reflects the same priorities driving the broader unbundling of the cloud.
Market Signals Worth Tracking
Analyst forecasts suggest more teams will reassess cloud ROI over the next three years. Modular design helps mitigate both governance and lock-in risks.
From a financial perspective, observing how investors approach cloud and data-center exposure can provide valuable signals. Barchart’s GX Cloud Computing ETF and S&P 500 IT sector dashboard offer snapshots of market sentiment that CTOs can fold into budget timing and risk assessments.
The Next Step
Cloud unbundling is no longer a theory; it’s a reality shaping how engineering teams design, budget, and scale. The organizations that gain the most from this shift will be the ones that approach it deliberately: start small, measure results, and keep their options open.
Running a pilot on a modular platform is an effective first move. Shift one service, monitor latency and uptime, and compare costs in real terms. For application deployments, providers that integrate directly with Git make these experiments low risk. Meanwhile, transparent billing across all services helps teams evaluate options without hidden surprises.
The bigger point is this: engineering leaders don’t need to accept rising bills and lock-in as the price of cloud. A modular stack gives you control to select the right tools, align infrastructure with business goals, and stay resilient as technology and market conditions evolve.
The cloud era isn’t ending. It’s unbundling. And that creates an opening for CTOs and product teams to build infrastructure that is leaner, more predictable, and ultimately more powerful.
About the author:
Alex Monroe is a technology strategist and former DevOps engineer who writes about cloud infrastructure, SaaS innovation, and the intersection of software and financial markets.
Contact Info:
Name: CloudNova
Email: Send Email
Organization: CloudNova
Website: https://cloudnova.ca
Release ID: 89169739
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