Cloud Lock-In and Egress Fees аs Obstacles to Data Migration
As companies seek more efficient data storage solutions due to storage commoditization and “new era” clouds providers granting better offers, they arrive at the conclusion that cloud-to-cloud migration is the needed choice. However, one of the main obstacles preventing companies from effectively conducting data migrations are the egress fees imposed by cloud storage service providers, which result in a lock-in situation.
Given that the goal of cloud data storage providers is to retain customers, some of them deliberately make the process of data transfer to cloud cheap, while making it technically challenging and expensive for companies to retrieve their data. The egress fees involved for transfers to other clouds create lock-in, and make it difficult for enterprises with large databases to consider investments in data migration.
Most large cloud storage providers charge exuberantly high fees for data transfers, as, for instance, the cost of migrating 1 PB from Amazon S3, Azure, or Google Cloud Storage will cost anywhere from $62,000 to $83,000, or from $0.06 to $0.08 per GB. Most companies have immense databases, resulting in considerable egress fees, and even contract infraction sanctions, if they decide to migrate to more optimal cloud storage spaces for operational efficiency.
Newer generation clouds, such as Backblaze B2, Wasabi, DigitalOcean are refraining from practicing lock-in by imposing lower costs without creating obstacles. But even with the existence of more cost-efficient solutions on the market, companies have to plan their data migration process and consider all of the costs involved. The total cost will eventually include the fees of the migration services, the cloud egress traffic fees, and other expenses of a technical nature, which increase the cost of moving information from a large cloud.
The solution to minimizing migration costs, avoiding egress fees and streamlining the process is the selection of a dedicated provider, such as Flexify.IO, which helps companies migrate data. By relying on the localization of its migration engines in the same cloud and region as the client’s data, Flexify.IO makes transfers for the data owner much cheaper and efficient by avoiding AWS egress fees. Instead of transmitting data via universal internet links, Flexify.IO has established agreements with cloud providers to maintain a dedicated and managed infrastructure. In addition, some providers like Backblaze, have subsidized data transfers to their resources, helping cover some or all of the costs of transferring client data via Flexify.IO. Such an approach reduces the costs of transferring 1 РB of data using Flexify.IO to less than $40,000, including all outgoing fees.
Selecting a cost-efficient migration solution that would break the vicious lock-in grip of major providers is the best avenue companies can take in improving their data management. With the abundance of connections Flexify.IO has to all of the major cloud storage providers, it offers clients the cheapest and fastest migration solution available on the market. The unique competitive advantages of operating a dedicated infrastructure further reduce end migration costs for clients, allowing them to transfer their data faster and cheaper with no egress fees.
