Cloud Repatriation Is Picking Up Speed

The undeniable benefits of cloud computing have led to its rapid growth in recent years. As organizations sought to modernize their IT systems and facilitate remote work, the cloud became an attractive option. However, amidst this cloud migration frenzy, many organizations are discovering that not all their data and workloads are best suited for the cloud. Consequently, a growing number of organizations are adopting a hybrid or multi-cloud approach, opting to repatriate certain workloads and data back to their own data centers. Let’s explore the reasons behind this emerging trend.

Rising Costs Of Cloud Computing:

While the cloud can be cost-effective for specific use cases, it has resulted in higher overall costs for organizations that migrated data and workloads without considering the best fit. Several factors have contributed to the increasing costs of cloud services. Factors such as general cost escalation, higher demand, and growing complexity are understandable. However, one major reason behind ballooning cloud budgets is the unpredictability of charges for egress or other service fees associated with public cloud storage. Many organizations found themselves paying significantly more for their cloud services than expected or budgeted for. In an effort to regain control over costs and make them more predictable, organizations are exploring alternative options.

The Need For Cloud Flexibility:

In an ideal cloud scenario, customers would have the freedom to choose and customize their setup, seamlessly moving data and workloads between different parts of their chosen multi-cloud ecosystem. Unfortunately, this level of flexibility is challenging to achieve. Public cloud vendors have successfully created vendor lock-ins, making it costly to move data away from their platforms. While uploading data to the cloud can be relatively inexpensive, retrieving it can be disproportionately expensive. As the volume of data, particularly unstructured data, continues to grow, storing and processing it in the cloud becomes financially burdensome.

Additionally, the concept of “Data Gravity” compels organizations to keep their data and workloads closer to their own infrastructure. Concerns related to cloud storage implementation, data sovereignty, and security further emphasize the need to retain certain data within the organization’s data center. To address these challenges and optimize their cloud setup, organizations are evaluating all available options to determine the most suitable location for their data and workloads. Consequently, they have concluded that repatriating some cloud workloads to on-premises infrastructure can offer a higher return on investment (ROI).

Complete Cloud Repatriation May Not Be The Ideal Solution:

Several factors influence the decision to bring data and workloads back from the public cloud to on-premises infrastructure. At the storage level, the resurgence of relatively inexpensive tape-based object storage presents a compelling business case for migrating appropriate data back to in-house hardware. This shift coincides with a broader transformation in the storage space, transitioning from disk storage to a strategy that includes a fast flash tier for high-performance workloads and a tape tier for low-cost bulk storage.