Exiting the Cloud

We design software solutions to operate beyond public cloud environments.

Public and Private Clouds

Public clouds are universally accessible services, provided by major vendors such as AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and GCP (Google). Private clouds, on the other hand, are smaller services either offered by vendors (including the public cloud providers) for dedicated use by a single client, or operated internally by large enterprises. The latter are commonly referred to as 'on-premise' deployments.

Why Are Companies Exiting the Cloud?

Companies are moving away from the cloud for a variety of reasons.

Smaller organizations often cite cost concerns. Setting up a local server can be more economical than renting cloud services. Many advantages of a managed cloud environment may be less relevant to tech-savvy startups that are comfortable with deploying (refurbished) servers.

European businesses often find it easier to achieve and maintain compliance with EU GDPR regulations and industry-specific standards when processing data on company-owned servers within the EU.

Smaller vendors are also influenced by their clients; large corporate clients may dictate preferred cloud providers or push vendors towards exiting the cloud entirely.

Do Companies Use a Mixed Approach?

Yes, many companies adopt a hybrid strategy, utilizing the cloud for development and experimentation, while transitioning production deployments off-cloud. Data-intensive applications often require extensive experimentation during development. Companies leverage the scalability and resource flexibility of the cloud for this stage. However, once applications move to production, resource consumption becomes more predictable, reducing the cloud’s advantages.

How Difficult Is It to Exit the Cloud?

The complexity of leaving the cloud depends on the level of reliance. Portable systems with standard integrations can be relocated as-is (referred to as 'lift-and-shift'), whereas systems deeply integrated with specific cloud services may face significant challenges (known as 'vendor lock-in').

Partial cloud exits are also feasible, where certain systems or datasets remain within the cloud.

How Can BISOT Help?

BISOT specializes in evaluating your cloud infrastructure, identifying dependencies on cloud-specific functionalities, and estimating the effort required to transition systems to operate off-cloud.