Most Organizations Cannot Quickly Exit Their Cloud Provider
Many organizations are more dependent on their cloud providers than they realize. The consequence is that moving critical workloads in response to cost, regulatory, or operational pressures may take months or prove difficult altogether.
Key Takeaways:
- Most surveyed organizations said they could not move critical workloads away from their primary provider within three weeks.
- Many respondents view vendor lock-in as a growing business risk as AI adoption expands.
- Organizations are investing in portability and digital independence despite the additional cost and complexity.
Organizations increasingly believe they have control over their cloud environments, but many are far more dependent on major cloud providers than they realize. A recent Leaseweb survey found that 89% of businesses could not move critical workloads away from their primary cloud or infrastructure provider within three weeks, and more than half said such a migration would take over three months or was currently impossible.
According to the survey, this dependency creates business risk. Vendor lock-in can limit flexibility, increase exposure to pricing changes, and reduce an organization’s ability to respond to geopolitical, regulatory, or operational disruptions. This survey also found that 79% of business leaders expect AI adoption to increase reliance on a small number of providers over the next three years, potentially deepening those risks.
Organizations are increasingly pursuing digital independence as concerns about cloud dependency grow. This survey found that 78% of respondents are already taking steps to reduce reliance on specific technology providers, citing the need for greater flexibility in responding to cost, regulatory, and operational changes.
Organizations are investing in digital independence
To support that goal, businesses are evaluating multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud strategies, adopting more portable application architectures, and retaining greater control over where data and workloads are hosted. These approaches can help organizations respond more effectively to pricing changes, service disruptions, and compliance requirements.
The report also recommends treating digital independence as a long-term strategic priority, particularly as AI adoption increases reliance on major cloud platforms. Organizations should regularly assess how easily workloads, data, and AI services could be migrated while balancing the benefits of portability against the additional cost and complexity of maintaining more flexible infrastructure.
It’s important to note that greater flexibility often requires additional investment, and businesses appear willing to pay for it. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they would accept at least an 11% increase in costs for more control and portability, with the average premium reaching about 16%. Digital independence can improve resilience and negotiating power, but it may require organizations to sacrifice some of the convenience and integration benefits offered by large cloud ecosystems.
Rabia has a master's degree in Software Engineering and she has years of experience writing professionally about Microsoft products and other technologies. Rabia has also written for OnMSFT.com as well as Windows Report. She is always up to date on t...
