Pakistani enterprises are moving past one‑cloud experiments into deliberate multicloud plans. Global cloud spend is forecast to reach about USD 723 billion in 2025 (Gartner forecast via CIO Dive (Gartner Cloud Forecast, May 2024)). Locally, regulatory momentum and talent supply are pushing leadership teams to design for resilience, data residency and cost control, not just quick lift‑and‑shift migrations. This guide shows how to build a policy‑compliant, cost‑optimised multicloud architecture across AWS, Azure and GCP for Pakistan in 2025.

Why Multicloud Matters for Pakistan’s 2025 Tech Landscape

Vendor lock‑in is expensive, both financially and operationally. Flexera’s 2025 survey found that 87% of enterprises globally operate across more than one public cloud, with hybrid patterns entrenched (Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud). For Pakistan, that trend intersects with compliance and sovereignty requirements across finance and telecom, making single‑provider bets risky and often non‑compliant.

Two local shifts make 2025 different:

• Policy tailwinds. The State Bank of Pakistan’s Framework on Outsourcing to Cloud Service Providers formalises expectations around location risk, subcontracting chains, exit strategy and incident handling (SBP Cloud Outsourcing Framework). In parallel, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan has issued Draft Cloud Adoption Guidelines for Incorporated Companies, signalling a governance‑first stance rather than blanket restrictions (SECP Draft Cloud Adoption Guidelines).
  
• Real deployments. Banks and large institutions have moved beyond pilots. For instance, HBL publicly attributes major HR process gains to Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, a visible example of large‑scale SaaS adoption in Pakistan’s BFSI sector (HBL Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM case study). Alongside this, core modernisation programmes with Systems Limited and Temenos show how banks are integrating multiple technology platforms to manage risk and modernise services (SBP–Systems–Temenos modernisation; Meezan Bank core modernisation).
  

If your teams need a structured upskilling path while you plan this shift, Sherdil’s Multi‑cloud Certification Program covers AWS, Azure and GCP architecture patterns end to end.

Market Adoption Data (govt, banking, startups)

Segment	What is happening	Signal
Government and regulators	SBP has a formal cloud outsourcing framework; SECP has issued draft cloud guidelines for companies	SBP Cloud Outsourcing Framework; SECP Draft Cloud Adoption Guidelines
Banking and financial services	HBL has adopted Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM; core modernisation programmes with Systems Limited and Temenos	HBL Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM case study; SBP–Systems–Temenos modernisation; Meezan Bank core modernisation
Startups and tech talent	Skills shortage reported; 32,685 cloud‑related vacancies cited in P@SHA survey	P@SHA Skills Survey 2025 – main page

For architecture and platform leaders, Sherdil’s DevOps Bootcamp provides the CI/CD and platform engineering bedrock that multicloud operations rely on.

Comparing the Big Three Clouds for Pakistani Use‑Cases

All three hyperscalers offer viable landing zones for Pakistan, with nearby regions that help with latency and data‑residency patterns.

Latency overview

Region	Avg RTT from Karachi	Source
AWS Mumbai	≈60 ms	CloudPing AWS Latency
AWS Bahrain	≈78 ms	RIPE Atlas latency data
AWS UAE	≈110 ms	CloudPing AWS Latency

Round‑trip times sampled Sept 2025; actual figures may fluctuate.

AWS strengths and regional fit

AWS provides regional options in Bahrain and the UAE, with round‑trip times within acceptable RTT (<120 ms) for most transactional workloads. Breadth of services, mature IAM and global BFSI adoption make it a strong candidate for Pakistan’s regulated sectors (AWS Regions list). If your estate is AWS‑leaning, Sherdil’s AWS 3‑in‑1 Program accelerates certification and hands‑on design skills.

Azure in regulated and government workloads

Azure’s integration with Microsoft estates and UAE North and Central regions makes it a frequent choice in AD‑centric enterprises. The Dubai Electronic Security Center (DESC) certification coverage for the UAE regions is an added compliance signal for public‑sector and regulated workloads (Azure UAE DESC compliance; Azure regions list). Sherdil’s Azure 2‑in‑1 Program is tuned for identity, governance and operations in such environments.

GCP for data and AI workloads

GCP’s strengths are data engineering and AI. Practical region choices for Pakistan include Mumbai and Delhi, with modern instance families for analytics and ML (GCP regions and zones). If your strategy emphasises data gravity and MLOps, Sherdil’s GCP 2‑in‑1 Program focuses on BigQuery, Vertex AI and production data pipelines.

Design Principles for a Resilient Multicloud Architecture

Network and identity federation

• Hub‑and‑spoke per cloud, encrypted interconnect between hubs. Use site‑to‑site VPN or SD‑WAN overlays to standardise routing and failover.
  
• Central identity domain. Treat identity as the control plane. Federation from a single IdP with conditional access policies keeps joiners, movers and leavers consistent across AWS IAM Identity Center, Azure Entra ID and GCP IAM.
  
• Workload identity. Adopt OIDC‑based workload identity for service‑to‑service trust across clouds.
  
• DNS with intent. Implement split‑horizon DNS with health‑based failover so critical services can be drained from an entire cloud during incidents.
  

Cost‑optimised workload placement

• Steady compute on reservations. Place steady pools on the cloud where Savings Plans or Reserved Instances deliver the best payback.
  
• Spot and preemptible for stateless jobs. Evaluate each cloud’s capacity and interruption profile for batch and ephemeral workloads.
  
• Data‑gravity aware design. Co‑locate analytics with primary data stores; unmanaged egress will erase unit‑price advantages.
  
• FinOps from day one. Typical egress budgets target <5% of the per‑account blended bill, with Flexera reporting a median of 6% in 2025 (Flexera 2025 blog).
  

Security and compliance alignment (SBP, SECP)

• Map controls to SBP’s framework. Document data location, subcontractor chains, exit strategies and incident handling. Keep auditable evidence for material workloads (SBP Cloud Outsourcing Framework).
  
• SECP guardrails. For listed and regulated entities, align cloud onboarding with the SECP draft guidelines until final issuance (SECP Draft Cloud Adoption Guidelines).
  

Step‑by‑Step Roadmap (0–6 months, 6–12 months, 12–24 months)

0–6 months: foundation

• Application inventory with dependency mapping; classify by sensitivity and residency.
  
• Select two primary clouds for near‑term workloads, plus a third for analytics and AI.
  
• Build a minimum‑viable landing zone in each: network hub, baseline IAM, logging, KMS, tagging and cost accounts.
  
• Draft SBP and SECP control mapping alongside an inter‑cloud exit plan (SBP framework; SECP draft).
  
• Pilot two or three workloads per cloud, including one data pipeline on GCP and one Windows or SAP‑adjacent workload on Azure.
  
• Establish a FinOps cadence with budgets, showback and reservation planning.
  

6–12 months: scale

• Extend IaC to full environment deployments; enforce policies as code.
  
• Implement centralised secrets and workload identity.
  
• Add a cross‑cloud gateway or mesh for zero‑trust traffic between services.
  
• Harden disaster recovery with cross‑region within a cloud and hot‑standby patterns across clouds for critical services.
  
• Begin targeted refactors to respect data gravity and reduce egress.
  

12–24 months: optimise

• Rationalise the portfolio: retire, rehost, refactor where the economics justify.
  
• Automate budget enforcement with guardrails and anomaly detection.
  
• Introduce portable PaaS where it pays, such as Kubernetes operators and multi‑cloud data catalogues.
  
• Test the exit strategy and restore playbooks on a quarterly schedule.
  

Success Stories: Two Pakistani Enterprises that went Multicloud

1. HBL: Cloud HR at scale
   HBL reports faster cycles after adopting Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, indicating a mature cloud posture in HR. In Pakistan’s BFSI context, analytics and integration workloads often land on additional hyperscalers alongside SaaS, which together form a multicloud operating reality (HBL Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM case study).
   
2. Central and tier‑one banks: platform modernisation
   Agreements involving Systems Limited and Temenos with the State Bank of Pakistan and large commercial banks show platform upgrades. These typically integrate multiple technologies for resilience and vendor risk management (SBP–Systems–Temenos modernisation; Meezan Bank core modernisation; Mobilink Bank modernisation coverage).
   

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

• Lifting and locking. Rehosting everything into one cloud without an exit plan just creates a new mainframe. Define portability boundaries and exit patterns from day one.
  
• Blind egress. Cross‑cloud data transfer can destroy the business case. Put budgets and alerts on egress, not just compute.
  
• IAM drift. Three different IAM models will drift without a single source of truth. Federate identity and automate policy.
  
• Underspecified residency. Regulators expect location clarity. Keep authoritative data maps, CSP region choices and approved transfer mechanisms in your design pack (SBP framework).
  
• Over‑abstracting. Forcing everything through a generic layer kills velocity and blocks managed‑service advantages.
  

90‑Day Action Plan for Technology Leaders

Weeks 1–2

• Approve a two‑cloud primary and one‑cloud secondary strategy.
  
• Name control owners for identity, network, FinOps and compliance.
  

Weeks 3–4

• Build baseline landing zones on AWS and Azure with logging, KMS, budgets and tags.
  
• Stand up a GCP data sandbox with BigQuery and a basic ingestion pipeline (GCP regions and zones).
  

Weeks 5–8

• Migrate one HR or collaboration workload to SaaS.
  
• Rehost one non‑critical internal app to AWS; place an analytics pilot on GCP.
  
• Finalise SBP and SECP control mappings with an artefact checklist (SBP framework; SECP draft).
  

Weeks 9–16

• Implement identity federation and workload identity across all three clouds.
  
• Enforce budget guardrails and anomaly alerts.
  
• Tabletop test the cloud exit playbook.
  
• Present a board‑level scorecard: cost per unit, availability, incident metrics and compliance posture.
  
• Lock next‑year portfolio rationalisation and reservation plans.

Conclusion

A thoughtful multicloud plan in Pakistan in 2025 balances capability, cost and compliance. With SBP and SECP guardrails maturing, leaders can avoid lock‑in, control spend and improve resilience. Treat identity, data gravity and FinOps as first‑class design inputs, and place workloads where each cloud is strongest. For teams that need structured training as they execute, Sherdil’s Multi‑cloud Certification Program and targeted tracks for AWS, Azure and GCP keep the skills pipeline aligned with the roadmap.Ready to master multicloud? Enrol in Sherdil’s Multi‑cloud Certification Program or WhatsApp 0300‑1234567 for a free counselling call. Seats are limited.