Single-Cloud First: Discipline, Not Dogma

By mearls | February 1, 2026

Cloud architecture showing a single paved road versus multiple branching paths, representing discipline versus complexity in multi-cloud strategy

Cloud conversations often frame single-cloud and multi-cloud as opposing strategies. One sounds flexible.The other sounds limiting.But that framing misses the point. Single-cloud first isn’t about loyalty. It’s about discipline. And discipline is what makes control possible. Most environments don’t start as multi-cloud. They gradually become multi-cloud: a SaaS platform here, a new workload there, an…

Agentic AI Isn’t Breaking Systems — It’s Exposing What We’ve Been Ignoring

By mearls | January 27, 2026

Agentic AI exposes cloud architecture weaknesses if identity and platform controls are unclear

Agentic AI isn’t breaking systems — it’s revealing identity and platform weaknesses we’ve tolerated. Architecture becomes operational safety at machine speed.

Identity First: The Only Control Plane That Survives Every Cloud Decision

By mearls | January 13, 2026

Identity isn’t plumbing — it’s architecture. User, device, and code identity form the only control plane that survives every cloud decision.