KnowYourCloud Community

The Devastating Cloud Lock-in

By

May 2, 2021

On LinkedIn there’s a discussion where the group members were asked to tell about the biggest challenge facing cloud and SaaS 2021. The thread includes more than 782 comments – and it seems that most of the comments are about the SLA, security and control.

I really don’t understand why security and service levels are big concerns. Yes, they are both important – but both should be fulfilled by the cloud as well as by the traditional outsourcing provider. I would add that it’s even more important for the cloud providers than their consumers. They face great risks if they don’t meet and maintain the required security and SLA. As we all know, it’s about being aware of risks and securing the proper data. 

Control, it’s more of a mind set to change for business. If customers can never let go of control, they will never be able to trust a cloud provider. I invite you to read more about the benefit of less control.

Instead of security, SLA and such, I found that my biggest concern is actually Lock-in. Getting locked-in by a service vendor can be driven by different factors:

1 - Terms and conditions in the agreement that say either you can’t get out without doing this or that or you have to pay extra for scaling down. Look out for these type of terms:

a. The agreement will be auto extended if you don’t cancel it in unreasonable amount of time (compared to the length of the agreement).

b. You have to negotiate the price if you drop X% of the usage. This is an IT outsourcing clause; it might exist and sometimes be relevant in private cloud solutions, but should not exist in a public cloud situation. 

2 -  Shifting costs. The service demands certain techniques whereby you have to radically change something in your existing environment when you migrate to another service that uses common standards and APIs.

3 - The emotional lock-in. Dangerous one. You are really not technically or legally locked in, but you know, assume or just feel that you have put too much effort, work or money into adopting or using the service than you think you should have. Get out of there as soon as possible. It’s gambling in Vegas…  “Ok, just 100$…then I stop…It will be my last bet…”

In a live webcast from an Amazon Web Services summit event in New York City in April, Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels advised:

“You should keep your providers on their toes every day… If we are not delivering the right quality of services, you should be able to walk away. You, the consumer of these services, should be in full control. That is core to our philosophy.” 

Photo Credit - GigaOm.com

Real cloud services should not be related to lock-in factors. Lock-ins are without a doubt one of the challenges and concerns cloud and SaaS meet every year and not only 2021. Lock-in is one of the major factors making cloud washing a great threat to cloud adoption. Customers shouldn’t have to be troubled by lock-in effects when choosing a service named Cloud. Customers should be able to walk between the clouds. With regard to choosing a cloud service, I quote the fabulous Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure pin ball game - “Choose wisely”!

Every cloud services provider’s wet dream is to win and keep the customer, but the battles shouldn’t be waged in the land of technical and legal lock-ins. They should take place in a land of partnership, counseling, and excellent service delivery.

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About the Author

Max Büchler – Blogger on InMaxMind
Cloud and ITaaS evangelist. “Agent provocateur”, criticizer and advisor. Hopefully with a special touch and different view, sometimes philosophic but always with a smile. Love to see fact and make cloud logic, don’t make it difficult. Focused on talking to, with and for the customer with the goal to ease and help adoption of cloud services. Profession as Manager of Product Management on a Swedish Managed Service Provider.

Photo Credit - GigaOm.com

  • http://davidbanes.com David Banes

    There’s also the issue of the cost of getting out of a cloud or SaaS provider. For example we’ve got a bunch of clients leaving a certain well known email archiving provider and they are CHARGING us for data export. In many cases the export fees are 5-10x the value of the original deal for us the reseller and the customer expects us to bear the costs.

    • http://twitter.com/MaxBuchler Max Büchler

      First; sorry for my late reply.

      This is a really tricky one, regardless if you have to pay for it or not. First I started to write an answer based on that you’re forced to use the CSP to export data and you have to pay for it. Then I realized that what you are saying (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that the CSP wants to have money for the “post” ‘export of data’ independent if the activity is performed by you, your customer or the CSP. I assume you can leave without the data but then the question is who really owns the data?! This is more advanced than lock-in…it’s like ransom for hostage. Would be nice to read the terms and conditions. If we have to deal with this type of issues we will have problem to get customers to the cloud.

      If you look at it from the perspective from where I started to answer, the more “reasonable” level of lock-in:

      Most certainly you have to do “something” to adopt or move away from a cloud service and the “something” is the key; how big and complicated it is. This may and should vary depending on the complexity of the service and its purpose. Ex: an advanced security service should be more complicated, because if there’s a free “auto tool” wrong people WILL use it and then the service isn’t secure anymore. Though; you should be able to read about it in T’s and C’s and you should be informed about incremental costs. But in general: if the only way to get out from the service and get your data is to use the CSP then you’ve been locked in. Whether you have to pay for it or not is really not a lock-in, it’s more a business model, even if paying hurts more, makes you frustrated and most probably; you will not shop from them again.

  • http://www.iamondemand.com I Am OnDemand

    Max - I agree with your thought in regards to the need to compare the lockin ot the traditional world, though I am sure that it is not the major challenge of cloud. I think that cloud challenge start with adoption hence with the several aspects considering all in all the control.

    • http://twitter.com/MaxBuchler Max Büchler

      I get your point. This might be hard to explain in just a couple of words but I still think adoption of cloud services is:

      - A customer mindset. Customer should let go of detailed underlying control.
      - A customer preparation. Customers should focus to build and prepare its organization to adopt services. Adopting services is not the same as running your own IT. Customers must have the top control to master and administrate your adopted services. The top control might be outsourced to a Service Provider or Cloud Aggregator.
      - A Cloud Service Provider responsibility. CSP’s has to unease and explain cloud; how, when and why in a language the customers understand. I will publish a post about talking the same language in a soon future.

      The role of trusted advisor becomes even more important. Sites like KnowYourCloud have an important role to guide customers and CSP’s in the sky. Adoption is, according to me, about bad preparation, mindset and not taking responsibility, these are problems but not devastating. Lock-ins makes people mad and “madness” is not good for business.

  • Pingback: The Successful Cloud Lock-in! | Newvem

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