Absolutely sure you’re ready for AWS lock-in? Then read this first

In 2018, hyperscale cloud giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) breached the $25 billion annual revenue mark, making it one of the most valuable IT services firms in the world. Pushing the firm from 7^th place to 3^rd in the HFS Top 25 High Value IT Services Companies list (see exhibit 1 for a peak at some preliminary data).

Exhibit 1: Preliminary data for the HFS Top 25 High Value IT Services Companies List

 Source: HFS Research

The firm’s financial success rests on a unique business model that CIOs need to understand fully if they are to avoid many of the pitfalls that other enterprises have encountered, namely getting locked-in to the AWS world, finding a suitable service partner and accessing the talent to scale your business effectively on the AWS cloud platform.

Lock-in is a legitimate challenge of high-value use cases—CIOs must budget for it

More and more we hear AWS gleefully announce that a client has gone “all in on AWS.” While on closer inspection we hear enterprises discuss on-premise instances that they couldn’t migrate, we must take AWS at its word—the majority of the customer’s compute is on AWS. The challenge is that AWS is increasingly under pressure for fostering a commercial environment that effectively locks clients into AWS cloud services because it is either too expensive or too time-consuming to shift their extensive use of proprietary cloud services to other hyperscale vendors.

Compounding this issue is the double-edged sword that in many cases, AWS’ out-of-the-box solutions and use cases far outstrip many of its competitors’ offerings, both in number and effectiveness. When clients layer these additional services over the top of native AWS environments, the lock-in becomes more acute because services do not readily migrate to other providers such as Google or Azure.

Ultimately, this is a balancing act for CIOs; they need to consider carefully the value of AWS’ growing offerings portfolio against the likelihood that there will be no suitable alternative services to move to if the need arises. For example, AWS’ machine learning and blockchain use cases must be layered over multiple AWS instances, which makes them nearly impossible to migrate elsewhere – especially with the likes of Microsoft’s Azure and Google’s TensorFlow gaining such popularity in the market.

You may not end up dealing directly with AWS—but its partner network is more than capable

The sprawling AWS partner network has evolved rapidly for a reason. There’s plenty of work to go around. As the firm’s growing revenues would indicate, the demand for its services is like a runaway train. The firm has developed a clever system for making the most out of this demand: it incentivizes its commercial team to bring in partners. This means that CIOs may find that the route to a successful AWS project is finding a partner to work with rather than pushing to work with the cloud giant directly. AWS has a somewhat checkered history of translating technical jargon to its business audience; a third-party partnership can help CIOs work around this shortcoming.

Out of all the hyperscale cloud providers—namely AWS, Google, Microsoft, and IBM—AWS has one of the largest partner networks, and it has an ecosystem that combines the heft of IT services giants, major consulting firms, and boutique agencies to supplement the firm’s delivery empire. Finding the right partner is key, and like many vendors, AWS is keen to award and accredit the firms it thinks are the best. Scouring the AWS website for partner credentials is a must for CIOs looking to go directly with a partner instead of rolling the dice on getting some face time with AWS execs—unless you’re a giant, that’s just not going to happen! In many ways, it’s the cloud giant’s lack of professional services that has fueled such a rich and diverse partner ecosystem.

Outside of AWS, the talent war is murky—scalable lock-in may be worth the risk

Going back to AWS’ major growth spurt over the past five years, we can home in on the real driving force: talent. AWS certified professionals outnumber their hyperscale cloud counterparts a hundred times over. In many cases, AWS has pushed a stronger narrative for the necessity of modern IT professionals needing its accreditations on their CV. For the same reason that this enables enterprise leaders to bring in AWS-savvy professionals, the partner ecosystem supporting the giant can tap into pools replete with AWS-certified talent to scale their services. We cannot say the same for many of the other hyperscale cloud firms, where talent wars are savaging the scalability of migrations.

The Bottom Line: The Kool-Aid can taste great—just enjoy it with your eyes wide-open. AWS lock-in may be a risk, but to wed a cloud player with talent, scale, and reach may just be worth it.

As AWS invests more into its offerings to push an enviable list of use cases, the potential risk of lock-in shrinks for modern enterprises. CIOs must balance business demands with the potential risks of going “all in with AWS.” The reality is that some enterprises may not have a choice if they want a cloud platform that can scale. A word of caution: The growing portfolio of multi-cloud management and orchestration is worth examining before making a joint “all in” announcement. Pulling in the right cloud environment for the task may be more achievable.