Article Series: Cloud and "Lock-in"

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Introduction

With the fast-pace of cloud changes (new services, providers entering and exiting), cloud lock-in remains a popular refrain. But what does it mean, and how can you ensure you're maximizing your cloud investment while keeping portability in mind?

Contents

Everything is “Lock-in”: Focus on Switching Costs

Coding in Java, buying SAP, deploying OpenStack, and using Amazon Web Services: each one introduces a type of lock-in. However, it makes no difference how hard you try- some form of lock-in is unavoidable. What matters most is understanding the layers of lock-in, and how to assess and reduce your switching costs.

Virtual Panel on (Cloud) Lock-In

There's no shortage of opinions on the topic of technology lock-in. InfoQ reached out to four software industry leaders to participate in a lively virtual panel on this topic: Joe Beda, Simon Crosby, Krish Subramanian, and Cloud Opinion.

Multi-Cloud is a Safety Belt for the Speed-Freaks

Cloud bursting! On-premises! Hybrid cloud! Off-premises! Multi-cloud! These are phrases author Michael Coté heard over the past 10 years when covering cloud as an analyst, strategist, and now evangelist. Each of them makes logical sense, especially on a big whiteboard with boxes and arrows going to and fro. In recent times, it’s the last - multi-cloud - that he's seen in actual practice the most.

Approaching Lock-In from a Consultant’s Perspective: An Interview with Nicki Watts

Consultants play a major role in helping companies deliver software. How do these consultants tackle lock-in and build portable solutions? In this interview, OpenCredo's Nicki Watt tackles this topic.

Series Manager

Richard Seroter s a Senior Director of Product at Pivotal, with a master's degree in Engineering from the University of Colorado. He's also a 9-time Microsoft MVP, trainer for developer-centric training company Pluralsight, speaker, the lead InfoQ editor for cloud computing, and author of multiple books on application integration strategies.

Richard maintains a regularly updated blog on topics of architecture and solution design and can be found on Twitter as @rseroter

Related Topics:

• Development
• Architecture & Design
• DevOps
• Business/IT Alignment
• Cloud Foundry
• Hybrid Cloud
• Deployment
• OpenStack
• IaaS
• VMWare
• Microservices
• Pivotal
• Enterprise Architecture
• Amazon Web Services
• Cloud
• Automation
• Cloud and 'Lock In'
• Article Series
• Infrastructure
• Architecture
• Cloud Computing

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