There are a lot of attractive cloud deals out there.
1¢ a gig here! Free Tier 1 services here! Being that the cloud market is still a low tapped resource and relatively new for most businesses, it’s so easy to click “Buy Now”, enter the business credit card and take advantage of these great offers. But when you look at the fine print, are these really great offers?
Bottom line: nobody operates at zero in the cloud. If you think that you are going to do so, you are sorely mistaken. Larger, public cloud entities do a great job advertising low rates but there tends to be a little “bait and switch” going on. Putting your data in the cloud for 1¢ a gig only to pull it out for 8¢ a gig is not what I call a low cost service. 100 Terabytes = 100K gigs = $1000/month. Moving this data – and you WILL have to move it – would cost $4000. Retrieving data shouldn’t feel like a penalty or tax, but that’s exactly what it is and it’s locking businesses in a place where they probably don’t want to be permanently.
To be clear, the companies that do this are not being deceitful. Everything is outlined in the End User Licensing Agreement documentation, but we live in a EULA desensitized world. Does anyone really read the fine print with a fine toothed comb anymore? If you are that someone and you happen to catch this, how likely are you going to negotiate better terms? How likely is the large cloud company going to agree to these terms? I don’t know the answer to these questions, but it does shed questionable light on the current large cloud provider landscape.
The good news: There are smaller, viable, consultative cloud providers out there that offer great service with low cost rates. It’s worth researching and though it may take a little more time to determine which cloud partner to work with, it’s definitely worth it. There is a time and place for the big cloud providers, but it’s not for every season nor every workload. Utilizing a tool like PvDC Cloud Management Portal by Net3 Technology, Inc. is a great option for businesses: it gives flexibility for utilizing best of breed cloud services including AWS, Google and vCloud Air for when the time and need is right.
If you dove into the Large Cloud Provider pool and now are drowning in regret, you can get yourself out. It may cost a penny (or a lot of pennies) to be saved, but your businesses data is worth saving and it can be put in the right place at the right cost. Contact Net3 Technology, Inc. where our cloud experts will lead you in the right direction and will support your cloud journey 24/7/365.
