The New Cloud Lock-in: The Fears are Not Real
When was the last time you felt locked into a product or service and struggled to move to competitor products? Well, this has been the norm of our day-to-day lives, with numerous products such as smart devices and patented devices locking customers to their proprietary commodities.
But, what about Cloud Computing?
Because companies are opting to use the Cloud to remain competitive in the market and fulfil their business needs. With limited investment, Cloud Services provide the required IT infrastructure and software for the steady growth of a company.
What happens when the business needs change or if the Cloud Service provider cannot satisfy the increased infrastructure needs of a company? The problem intensifies if the company cannot disassociate itself from the Cloud Service provider and is locked in. In technical terms, a Cloud Lock-in has occurred.
What is Cloud Lock-in?
A Cloud Lock-in, also referred to as Vendor Lock-in or Data Lock-in, is a scenario in which Cloud Services forcibly lock customers into their implementation. As a result, transitioning to a different or competitor Cloud environment is challenging and expensive, and involves legal constraints plus technical incompatibilities.
Cloud Computing Service Providers are finding innovative means to lock their customers in the current implementation by making technology switching costs a nightmare. Significantly, the rising interoperability and compatibility issues across Cloud Platforms have posed a major setback for public cloud adoption. Enterprises are constantly growing, and so are their infrastructure and products. With the fear of non-compatible technologies and custom-built solutions in Public Clouds, enterprises are opting for private cloud solutions, which are not as scalable as the Public Cloud.
The trade-offs are evident, but how far can an enterprise escape the hassle of interoperability issues between different Cloud implementations? Cloud Services are supposed to provide a one-stop solution for all your technical, infrastructure, and software needs. But that does not mean forcing a customer to be connected with you.
So, is Cloud Lock-in bad? Not really!
How safe is it to embrace Cloud Lock-in?
Well, it is pretty safe. If a company has thoroughly evaluated its needs with a particular Cloud Service Provider, then there should be no second thoughts about having a continued association. For instance, if the company does not envision any acquisitions or company mergers that could potentially give rise to migration or interoperability issues, then sticking with a single Cloud solution is the best approach. Most importantly, such loyalty might also help companies to win offers and discounts from Cloud vendors.
Specifically, suppose the Cloud vendor is a pioneer in the technological needs of your business. In that case, a wise decision will be to have a long-term relationship with the vendor, as achieving your business goals takes priority over experimenting with different Cloud Implementations. This way, the benefits outweigh the setbacks only if you and your customers are totally in sync with the Cloud Service offerings.
Is Cloud Lock-in a matter of concern?
In a Cloud Computing setup, business establishments may run into challenging situations when they are unhappy with the cloud provider’s services (or the vendor). What do such establishments do? Can they easily migrate to other Cloud Providers? The answer is “No.”
Cloud migration becomes a significant hurdle because moving databases across implementation, especially when being locked to a specific vendor, is not easy. Vendors may misuse their client’s weakness and charge hefty amounts of money to facilitate the migration, or even worse, make it an uphill task.
Precautionary measures to avoid the risk of Cloud Lock-in
Instead of being caught by surprise later in the cycle, perform due diligence at the beginning of a Cloud implementation to avoid any unforeseen risks in the event of future Cloud migration.
First, evaluate the vendor’s service thoroughly with a proof of concept to ensure that the vendor’s deployment fits in well with your technical and business needs. Next, make sure that protocols for your data format are portable and easy to migrate across different environments.
Most importantly, aim for a structure that is not tightly tied to the vendor’s implementation. Another solution is to implement a hybrid-/multi-Cloud setup in the initial phases and maintain a local backup of your data, especially those that are less mission-critical. Storing data in different Cloud implementations reduces the dependency on a specific vendor. Maintaining an on-premises data backup is always a lifesaver in times of network delay or ransom attacks.
What if you are already Locked-in?
Every organization starts small with moderate IT requirements easily met by Cloud solutions, which facilitate low-cost implementations for companies yet to break even. Over time, the organization’s technological and business needs increase, and the need to expand horizons beyond the capability of the current Cloud implementation may arise. In such situations, an organization may be obligated to stick with the current Cloud implementation if its contract clause prevents them from easily breaking away from the contract. Even if they did so, absorbing the aftereffects of the transition may be expensive.
In such sticky situations, organizations must remember that it is not the end of the world. They must stay calm, evaluate the pros and cons, and undertake a well-thought decision. As the first step, discuss with the incumbent Cloud Service Provider to be flexible enough to bridge the gap in your technical requirements. If this approach does not work, examine your terms and conditions, and look for clauses that might give you an easy exit from the contract with minimum losses.
Suppose the intentions of the Cloud Provider are straight. In that case, they will make way for cross-functionality between Clouds and any alteration in the given services so that they don’t either lose the contract or, even worse, lose the client’s goodwill.
Irrespective of the Cloud Service Provider’s intention, realizing and acting according to your business needs is your prerogative. Being hooked to a Cloud implementation that might shun your organization’s innovation would, in the long run, impact your organization’s growth trajectory.
Solutions that help alleviate Cloud Lock-ins
Many products (such as Cloudflare) in the market help mitigate the problems associated with Cloud Lock-in. These products are infrastructure-agnostic, and you can deploy them in front of a Cloud implementation. With such deployments, an organization need not depend on a particular cloud service provider for performance, security, and data storage. Instead, they can function independently without impacting their daily activities while still harnessing the benefits of the Cloud implementation.
Another solution is to build Cloud-native applications that enable organizations to build and run scalable applications locally in an organization’s data center, Private or Public Cloud. Kubernetes, an underlying open-source technology, provides the flexibility for applications to run anywhere and also facilitates applications to run fast by automating specific processes.
Conclusion
Customers should always enjoy the freedom to explore various products and choose what best suits their organizational needs. Being tied or locked to a particular product or service might seem beneficial initially. Still, with the dynamic changes in technology and business needs, priorities and goals change, and the inability to implement modern technological solutions might become a deterrent to the company’s growth. Many Cloud implementations use customized solutions and proprietary platforms to retain their customer base.
However, from the company’s perspective, it would lose an opportunity to try better solutions in the market, especially when they run into technical or legal issues with its current vendor. Therefore, meticulously evaluate your business requirements and choose a heterogeneous solution that gives you the flexibility to change your business strategies without impacting your balance book and the company’s reputation. Because ultimately, interoperability is the need of the hour!
