Civo gives short shrift to egress fees concession

Mark Boost, CEO of cloud-native service provider Civo, has reacted with scorn to Microsoft’s announcement that it is removing egress fees for customers that move data from Azure to an alternative cloud provider or data centre, following similar moves by AWS and Google Cloud.

He said: “Don’t be fooled by Big Tech’s apparent rush to abolish egress exit fees. Azure is racing on the heels of AWS and Google Cloud to remove charges only for data transfer out of the cloud to ensure compliance with the fast-approaching European Data Act.”

He added: “If you look deeper, the change comes with strings attached. Azure is only removing egress fees for storage data for exiting customers, with charges still applying for egress from other Azure services, and customers have to cancel all Azure subscriptions before claiming
the credit. Clearly, in the mind of the hyperscalers, flexibility still comes at a price.”

Egress fees are just one complaint against the ‘Big Three’ hyperscalers. In a recent Civo survey of 500 IT professionals that use AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, 64% said they had experienced a rise in cloud costs in the last 12 months; 47% said they were considering a move away from the cloud because of the expense; and 37% said that the cloud had failed to live up to its promise of cost-effectiveness.

In addition, 42% said they found it hard to predict their cloud bill every month, with 28% reporting that they had received an unexpectedly large bill for cloud services. More than half (57%) of hyperscaler users say they are now taking steps to manage or reduce their cloud service costs.

Boost said: “The cloud is broken. That is the stark truth we all need to face up to. The hyperscalers have not delivered on their lofty promises of low costs at scale that they set out more than a decade ago. Instead, users are left with high prices, overly complex solutions and ‘black-box’ proprietary tech that make it very difficult to move anywhere else. When you are in, you are in! This situation can be hugely damaging, especially for smaller businesses, making it very difficult for them to build a bespoke, affordable approach to cloud that suits their needs.”