Amazon Web Services (AWS) has made a surprising admission that customers are moving back to on-premises infrastructure from the cloud. This marks a significant shift from its previous stance that all workloads would eventually move to the cloud.
According to evidence submitted to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), AWS claims that customers are returning to on-premises infrastructure due to the flexibility it provides and the attractiveness of moving back. The company lists examples of customers switching back, citing reasons such as reallocation of internal finances, adjusting access to technology, and increasing ownership of resources, data, and security.
This trend is not unique to AWS, with many companies repatriating some or all their workloads from the cloud due to cost concerns. One notable example is Basecamp project management developer 37Signals, which switched back to on-premises infrastructure after being presented with a $3.2 million cloud hosting bill. The company claimed to have already made savings of $1 million by the end of last year.
However, AWS also notes that customers may switch between cloud providers or use a combination of cloud and on-premises infrastructure. The company’s evidence suggests that around 29% of UK organizations that have switched from cloud infrastructure providers have moved to on-premises services.
Industry analysts caution that while cloud repatriation is becoming more common, it is still a relatively small trend. IDC senior research director Andrew Buss notes that many companies are moving towards private cloud infrastructure and standardized off-the-shelf solutions like Azure Stack or VMware Cloud Foundation.
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/aws_cma_investigation/