It turns out that the cost is a big factor when it comes to the cloud. Companies who put their workloads in the cloud may find that the costs start to pile up, suggesting that it may be time to look for alternate approaches. The simplified solution might be to simply move back on-prem, but this approach comes with many questions. Moving to the cloud in the first place was a decision that was made because of the agility it provides compared to the outdated on-prem approach.
It wasn’t easy to ensure capacity when businesses had to plan for it on-prem, and the procurement process was needlessly long and tedious. Companies may also struggle to move workloads from the cloud since the U.K.’s communications watchdog recently put out a report that the process of moving between clouds or back on-prem could be expensive and difficult.
To better understand if companies are actually looking to move off the cloud and back to on-prem, we consulted experts in the industry. Surprisingly, the consensus seems to be that the idea of a large-scale repatriation from the public cloud is exaggerated. Cloud infrastructure spending was up 26% in 2022, compared to 2021, while investment in on-prem infrastructure remains weak.
John Dinsdale of Synergy Research emphasised the growth in the cloud market, compared to the weak growth in on-prem infrastructure. This suggests that companies are still investing in the cloud, despite the high costs. It’s worth noting, however, that companies should be monitoring the expenses associated with their cloud workloads, as well as the difficulty of moving between different solutions.
