About 48% of organizations have shifted their data and workloads away from the public cloud. See the most common reasons driving cloud repatriation.
According to a recent survey, some 48% of organizations have shifted their data and workloads away from the public cloud. But what's behind the great cloud repatriation rush? Has the cloud failed to deliver on its promise of simplicity, speed, ease, and affordability? Partly, yes! But the public cloud isn’t entirely to blame here.
Over the past decade, the cloud has been undisputedly touted as the ultimate game-changer, the silver bullet to any and all infrastructure woes. Organizations were quick to take the bait and hop on the bandwagon without doing their homework – Cloud Service Provider (CSP) assessments, cost analysis, long-term ROI evaluations, and migration planning and re-architecting. Consequently, many are now keen to repatriate their cloud apps and data to on-premise. Needless to say, this fast fashion approach to the cloud is unsustainable.
What’s Behind the Public Cloud Exodus?
The reasons driving cloud repatriation are just as diverse as those behind the initial cloud migration rush. Commonly reported ones include:
Cost Overruns
Public cloud’s biggest allure was cost reduction. However, as data and application volumes grow, cloud costs can escalate. Many find that their workload demands and data access patterns to be unsuitable for the cloud, just a little too late. For instance, many CSPs offer incentives for customers to bring their data into the cloud with lower or no ingress charges. However, for frequently accessed data, the egress charges become significant overtime. That’s when companies may want to repatriate. It’s also easier to forget about data and VMs running unnecessarily in the cloud, leading to unanticipated costs and budget overruns.
Security and Compliance
Data sovereignty driven by privacy laws, such as the GDPR in EU and CCPA in California, reinforce the need for citizen’s data to remain within specific regions. Industries, like health care and finance are also subject to certain regulations that demand certain data to remain in-house. Due to this evolving and increasingly stringent regulatory landscape, many companies find themselves compelled to repatriate their data and apps.
Another factor behind cloud repatriation is the loss of control and visibility, which can lead to security failures. The uncertainties associated with the cloud’s shared responsibility model and lack of visibility regarding data and workload whereabouts, particularly in complex multi-cloud environments, have made it another one of the top cloud challenges for businesses.
Changing Requirements
Not all cloud repatriation initiatives stem from inefficiencies or ineffective planning. Sometimes, as businesses evolve, so do their requirements. For instance, organizations attempting to improve latency and performance are keen to consider alternatives like on-premise deployments and edge computing, which allow them to host their data and applications closer to where the end-users are. This is especially true for businesses in latency-sensitive sectors, like healthcare, finance, streaming, or gaming.
What to Consider Before Ditching the Cloud
DropBox’s USD 75M in savings following its cloud repatriation initiative often dazzles enterprises struggling with managing their cloud spends. However, let’s not forget the bigger picture, the resources and effort that went into DropBox’s cloud repatriation journey. A giant like DropBox would be willing to bet exuberant investments on the long-term performance, scalability, and cost benefits of on-premise and private deployment. But for many organizations, the sheer investment of acquiring private infrastructure, in-house expertise, and remodeling and re-architecting data and internal apps for repatriation would be a major deterrent. Cloud migration is hard, and cloud repatriation requires equal if not more diligence, planning, and resources, making an all-or-nothing approach to cloud impractical for most.
Does that mean you’re locked-in with your cloud vendor for life despite incompatibilities and inefficiencies? Not really! The rise of the hybrid and sovereign clouds, combined with multi-cloud management platforms, like emma, that allow centralized cloud and cloud spend management can allow organizations to avoid full cloud repatriation.
Cloud Repatriation or Delivering on the Cloud Promise with the emma Platform?
emma, short for enterprise multi-cloud management application, is a platform for simplifying the deployment and management of data and workloads across multiple clouds, including private and on-premise data centers. The emma platform provides access to all cloud providers and in-house resources through a single interface. Here’s how that can help address each of the challenges leading to the rise in cloud repatriation:
Cost Management
The emma platform utilizes advanced price comparisons to identify and recommend the best cloud offers and available spot instances across CSPs in real-time. This allows you to choose the most cost-effective options available for each dataset, cluster, or VM, thus reducing your overall cloud spend. Its user-friendly interface allows you to track and manage forgotten instances and identify alternate, cost-effective options to avoid budget overruns. Thanks to the single, familiar dashboard, you can reduce cloud costs by up to 75% with just a few clicks.
Security and Compliance
The emma platform enables you to tap into the security and reach of hybrid and multi-cloud deployments to make sure each data set and workload stays within an environment that meets its security and regulatory compliance requirements. On-premise and multi-cloud presence, managed via a single management dashboard, allows you to secure maximum uptime through cross-cloud workload distribution and multiple points of access for data. The emma platform itself is GDPR and HIPAA compliant and capable of supporting local and global policies anywhere.
Adaptability
The emma multi-cloud management platform empowers you to break free from vendor lock-ins and navigate growth, evolution, and advancements without a complete overhaul of your existing infrastructure strategy. The emma platform’s insights and analytical capabilities allow you to identify, add, and shift to environments that support your evolving cloud strategy anytime.
If you’re considering repatriating to the premises, don’t haste to take the plunge like many did with the cloud. Cloud is definitely not the ideal choice for all types of data and applications, but neither is on-premises. Despite the latest trend, the need for cloud is not going to abate. It’s important to evaluate the unique requirements of all applications and choose the most-suited environment for each, whether on-premises, public, or private cloud. At emma, we’re striving to let you have the best of all clouds, without the added complexity.
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