As an avid reader of history, it’s becoming increasingly evident that economic cycles of boom and bust are repeating themselves at an accelerating rate. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the ever-evolving technological landscape of cloud computing.

The “as-a-service” delivery mechanism has revolutionized the way we consume technology. Cloud computing, in particular, has transformed the way businesses operate, offering scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency.

The Promise of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing promises to deliver computing resources on-demand, eliminating the need for upfront infrastructure investments and associated maintenance costs. This utility model provides flexible operational expenditure, making it an attractive option for businesses.

Where Cloud Computing Has Done Well

Cloud computing has delivered well on expectations in several areas:

Scalability and Elasticity: Cloud platforms provide businesses with the flexibility to quickly scale their infrastructure up or down based on demand.

Cost Efficiency: Cloud computing helps organizations optimize their IT costs by eliminating upfront infrastructure investments and associated maintenance costs.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: Cloud computing enhances disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities by automating backup processes, replicating data across multiple regions, and quickly recovering systems and applications in the event of a disaster.

Where Cloud Computing Has Fallen Short

Despite its benefits, cloud computing has fallen short in several areas:

While cloud computing has delivered many benefits to organizations, it has also fallen short in a number of areas

1. Downtime and Service Disruptions: Despite the promises of high availability and reliability, cloud services have experienced occasional outages and downtime. Even major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP have experienced service disruptions that have impacted businesses relying on their platforms. These disruptions can result in significant downtime, loss of productivity, and potential financial losses for organizations. 
   
   Zadara Response to Downtime and Service Disruptions:
   Cloud companies like Zadara are used by many organizations as part of a business continuity plan offering a separate independent IaaS in the event of a major cloud provider going down. With AWS-compatible EC2 Compute alongside S3 compatible Object, File and Block Storage, business continuity is better assured. 
   
2. Data Sovereignty Concerns: There are now increasing concerns around data sovereignty, with legislation such as the introduction of the Cloud Act in 2018, this allows federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether data is stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil1.
   
   Zadara Response to Data Sovereignty Concerns:
   Zadara’s global Edge Cloud service provider network with over 500 points of presence, is designed to give you the greatest possible control over your data and your customer’s data, no matter where your business and customers are located. Zadara’s unique approach reduces dependence on overseas cloud service providers who operate under nonresident legislation, mitigating potential security risks associated with hosting sensitive data outside of the host country.
   
3. Vendor Lock-In: Moving to the cloud often requires businesses to commit to a specific cloud provider and their ecosystem. Migrating applications and data to a particular provider’s platform can create vendor lock-in, making it challenging to switch to another provider in the future. This lack of portability and unplanned ingress and egress costs can limit flexibility and hinder the ability to take advantage of competitive pricing or new technologies from different vendors.
   
   Zadara Response Vendor Lock-In:
   Zadara delivers S3 compatible Object, File and Block Storage alongside EC2-compatible compute platforms, helping customers avoid lock-In and offer an alternative for storage and movement of data without the unplanned ingress and egress costs.
   

Zadara has been delivering IaaS for over a decade at the time of writing. In that time they have built some 500 global clouds to deliver File, Block and Object Storage alongside EC2-compatible compute infrastructure. Zadara works hard to help customers and partners solve infrastructure challenges others have not been able to fully address.