Vendor lock-in is something that I have encountered often in the past. Cable and cell phone companies operate as a monopoly, pushing out any potential competitors so that they will reign supreme. This causes users to be subjected to only having a few options when it comes to their available providers. Cloud computing certainly is starting to eliminate this by allowing many vendors to operate in its network. It is hard to build a computer, network, or any type of IT-related project that doesn’t involve Microsoft or Apple presently. It is also hard to deal with routers or switches without Cisco. Cloud computing allows multiple vendors to compete for their customer’s purchases and use, which promotes the healthy competition of these companies.
To help prevent vendor lock-in with cloud computing, there are several tools one can implement to aid in this effort. Ensratus, a management console, configures your workload in a neutral, open source manner. This tool allows the transfer of data to many different vendors such as Amazon, HP, and Rackspace. DMTF’s Open Virtualization Format 2.0 (OVF) is another tool that allows translation between multiple virtual machine formats. One can also prevent vendor lock-in by merely reading the fine print of a provider’s policies and inquire how they move data out of their cloud storage. Data migration tools and services are often used to move a large amount of data, but which do they use? Nirvanix, for example, provides direct cloud-to-cloud data migration. Choosing providers that support future emerging standards like the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) is also helpful. The CDMI enables a standard interface that various applications use to make, delete, and retrieve data in a cloud.
Another service that helps businesses avoid vendor lock-in is the new cloud stage service from Nimble Storage, Nimble Cloud Volumes. It is an enterprise-grade multi-cloud storage device, configured for running applications in Azure and Amazon. The service offers 99.9999% availability and durability that is one million times greater than native storage. Vendor lock-in can significantly negatively impact business with a lack of flexibility and scalability. Also, this can cause higher costs when trying to purchase applications or hardware that are vendor-specific. By following the tips and using the tools mentioned in the articles I have referenced, a business can stay away from the dreaded vendor lock-in and instead, use vendors and products that are beneficial for them.
References:
Babcock, Charles. (2013). Network Computing. 10 Tools To Prevent Cloud Vendor Lock-in. Retrieved from http://www.networkcomputing.com/cloud/10-tools-prevent-cloud-vendor-lock/1477575934.
Taneja, Arun. (2012). Search Cloud Storage- Tech Target. Dealing with cloud storage service providers: Avoiding vendor lock-in. Retrieved from http://searchcloudstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Dealing-with-cloud-storage-service-providers-Avoiding-vendor-lock-in.
Forrest, Conner. (2017). Tech Republic. Nimble Storage wants to kill cloud vendor lock-in, helps users easily jump between Azure, AWS. Retrieved from http://www.techrepublic.com/article/nimble-storage-wants-to-kill-cloud-vendor-lock-in-helps-users-easily-jump-between-azure-aws/.
Categories: Hardware
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