It’s not daily we witness a cloud supplier abruptly closing its doorways. But, that’s precisely what occurred when NetEase, a Hangzhou, China-based web and gaming large, introduced it was shutting down its public cloud service. As of April 7, 2025, the platform will go offline completely. Purchasers are being inspired emigrate to different companies. Though this transfer is proscribed to a small variety of shoppers in mainland China, it raises broader questions on how companies ought to safeguard themselves from the dangers related to a cloud vendor shutdown.
The consolidation of the cloud computing market from 2010 to 2013, as smaller suppliers confronted difficulties competing with main gamers akin to Amazon Net Providers (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, displays the challenges we see at present. After the preliminary increase within the public cloud market, many smaller, area of interest suppliers struggled to compete with the numerous investments and economies of scale achieved by the bigger gamers. Prospects started gravitating towards suppliers with strong infrastructures, international attain, and intensive service choices, leaving smaller gamers unable to scale profitably or spend money on cutting-edge options.
Throughout this era, a number of cloud firms exited the general public cloud area altogether. Notable examples embrace Nirvanix, a cloud storage supplier that shuttered operations in 2013, GoGrid, which pivoted to deal with information companies and left the general public cloud market, and Joyent, which offered its cloud enterprise after failing to compete with hyperscalers. All of them had clients who wanted to shortly work out an exit technique.