In the latest episode of Perifery’s Tech Talk podcast, Senior Sales Director, EMEA, Peter Watling joined Marketing Director, EMEA, Leanne Tomlin to explore the intricate world of cloud storage.
Leanne and Pete started by discussing the concept of vendor lock-in and how it's often compared to ransomware due to the challenges of migrating data from one cloud provider to another.
Pete highlighted the significant costs associated with egress fees, sharing that after looking at some figures, he’d discovered that the fee for moving 100TB of data from one of the large providers was $10,000. He said, “we've been talking to companies that have petabytes and the removal costs out of AWS would have been over $200,000, which is extreme.”
Although the large providers recently announced that they are scrapping their egress fees, Pete stated that these fees “ultimately shouldn’t have been there in the first place”, likening it to being held at ransom to move your own data. He continued to discuss the hidden fees when storing data with public cloud providers, “you're paying a significant fee for somebody to host your content, which is fine. You should have free access to that.”
Leanne added that the unpredictable fees also had a negative impact on organizations monetization efforts, highlighting that the uncertainty around costs made it challenging for businesses to effectively drive revenue from their content. Pete agreed, noting that these hidden fees were causing problems for many organizations and questioned why businesses were continuing to pay for accessing their own data.
Pete discussed the alternative, advocating for smaller private cloud providers, “they don't charge you these hidden fees, they don't charge you to access your own content.”
The conversation shifted to the rapid adoption of cloud services during the pandemic, driven by the need for remote work capabilities. Leanne acknowledged the challenges faced in the media industry, but questioned whether organizations had fully considered the long-term impact of their decisions. Pete added that a lot of teams ended up “panic buying”, which led to the rapid adoption of public cloud. He noted, however, that we are now in a period of reflection, highlighting that it’s now a good time to analyze decisions from the last few years, “I think that everyone should question the motives around moving services to public cloud and really look at the implications around it all.”
Leanne then asked Pete his opinion on how modern archive solutions can address challenges, such as vendor lock in and egress fees, going forward.
Pete highlighted the need for strategic thinking and future planning, stating that organizations needed to consider not only what they need now, but also for the long-term preservation of their media assets. He noted that platforms should be future-proof, scalable, adaptable, and able to easily integrate, adding, “but most importantly, it’s having a platform that can not only do these things, but that can offer ways of generating revenue… if you can’t make money from it, then it’s not an asset.”
Leanne added that security should also be a crucial factor, to which Pete emphasized the advantages of private clouds and on-site facilities in securely storing and monetizing content. He highlighted the control organizations gain over security compliance, user access, and system management when utilizing private cloud solutions.
Addressing the future of the industry, Pete expressed skepticism about large public cloud providers finding alternative ways to charge for services despite recently scrapping egress fees. He urged organizations to question the motives behind such decisions and emphasized the importance of future-proof systems, hybrid solutions, and the value offered by private cloud companies over major corporate cloud providers. He added “it's all about working with the customer.”
Leanne concluded the podcast by inviting listeners to engage further at The Media Production and Technology Show (MPTS) in London on May 15 & 16. “If you want to chat more to us about our cloud solution or on prem solution, and our asset management platform, then do come along.”
Listen to full the podcast now. Perifery will be exhibiting on booth B40 at MPTS later this week.
