That makes sense, given that AWS has little need to build market share. You can use Outposts to integrate your colocated infrastructure with the AWS cloud if you really want, but given the restrictions of the platform, it’s a hard sell. Their pricing is generally lower, especially if you opt for self-managed versions of the offerings.įrom the perspective of colocation users, then - not to mention colocation providers - it can almost feel like AWS is only reluctantly offering a hybrid cloud solution. (Azure Arc, a similar hybrid cloud framework that is not yet generally available, is even more flexible in that it will run on any infrastructure.) These platforms also support serverless functions in addition to the core types of IaaS services that Outposts offers. Azure Stack requires certified hardware, but users purchase it from third parties, and there are a variety of options available. Google’s Anthos works with virtually any servers. The hybrid solutions from other vendors are more flexible. And it’s pretty pricey, starting at thousands of dollars per month. It supports fewer types of cloud services - mainly virtual machines, object storage, and databases - than competing hybrid cloud frameworks. It requires customers to purchase hardware directly from AWS, instead of using servers they already own.

The main reason is that AWS’s hybrid framework, Outposts, is a relatively inflexible solution. But when you look at the details, AWS’s stance toward colocation looks a bit different than that of Azure and GCP. The public clouds are offering hybrid cloud platforms that let colocation customers consume public cloud services without having to embrace the public cloud completely. You might conclude, then, that the public cloud vendors (with some help from colocation providers) are catering to colocation users. Interconnect solutions allow colocated workloads to move data into and out of the cloud without the bandwidth limitations they would face when using a hybrid architecture that relies on generic internet connections to bridge data centers and public clouds. When you can use public cloud services while still keeping your servers in a colocation data center, you face less pressure to move to the public cloud completely.Ĭolocation providers’ investments in cloud interconnects make the deal even sweeter. But it’s important news for colo in particular, because it helps keep colocated infrastructure relevant and useful in an age when the public cloud reigns supreme. This is a big deal for hybrid cloud setups of all types, not just those that involve colocation data centers. Related: Colocation Operators Expand Cloud Interconnects to Accommodate Hybrid Adoption Instead of having to build simplistic hybrid cloud architectures, where organizations use public cloud services alongside workloads running in a colocation facility, they can now deploy the same public cloud services across their entire infrastructure - even if that infrastructure consists of a mix of public-cloud IaaS services and colocated servers. That’s thanks in large part to the debut of new hybrid cloud frameworks - namely AWS Outposts, Azure Stack, and Google Anthos - that make it possible to run certain public cloud services directly on customer-controlled infrastructure, in data centers of the customer’s choice. Over the past couple of years, the intersection between public clouds and colocation facilities has been redefined. Related: Why Hybrid Cloud and Colocation Don’t Always Gel Its end-game regarding colocation looks different, a fact that may bear important implications for the way colocation customers approach hybrid cloud today. They also offer network-optimization solutions that speed data transfers between colocation data centers and their clouds.īut when you look more closely, AWS stands apart from other public cloud vendors. They have all released hybrid cloud platforms that tightly integrate their public cloud services with on-prem or colocated infrastructure.

At first glance, all of the major public clouds - AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform - may appear to be following roughly the same playbook when it comes to colocation and hybrid architectures.

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