IaaS Providers Making Early Changes in 2024

A new year has started and some of the major IaaS providers are making major changes early on. AWS and GCP have both announced major changes that might be a signal for what's to come this year.

IPv4 Changes for AWS

In a recent blog post, AWS has announced they will start charging for IPv4 addresses to the tune of $0.005 per IP per hour. This move reflects the scarcity and rising cost of IPv4 addresses and is aimed at pushing users to further economize their IPv4 usage, while at the same time accelerating the adoption of IPv6.

For most Cycle users that consume AWS, this will be a short term cost increase in the bill from providers, but should be a sign that the movement toward an IPv6 native future is all but inevitable… Something we are more than prepared for!

GCP Eliminates Egress Transfer Fees

In a rare move, GCP has made it easier than ever to migrate off the GCP service. They've done this by eliminating data transfer fees. This decision is a significant step towards enhancing cloud flexibility and addressing the often-overlooked issue of restrictive licensing practices (we're looking at you Azure) in the cloud industry.

This announcement has no direct impact on Cycle users, but I think we can effectively glean some insight here. The world is moving toward a more choice centric, multi-cloud future and Cycle users know better than anyone that multi-cloud can be a powerful addition to your cloud architecture, especially when the platform you use natively supports it.

Future Trends

There's some signal in this noise of a shifting paradigm for the IaaS sector.

• Cost Management and Efficiency: AWS's pricing changes urge users to at least consider IP management and potentially accelerate IPv6 adoption. They've also released a new insights tool to go along with their change to the cost.
• Flexibility: GCP's policy highlights a move toward customer-centric decision making for the IaaS giant. This new policy directly challenges existing norms from the big 3, that tend to lean towards further entrenching their existing base.
• Competitive Dynamics: GCP's move may prompt other providers to reconsider their stance on data transfer policies, which could lead to a more open and flexible cloud ecosystem.
• IPv6: The not so gradual depletion of IPv4 addresses and new pricing and cost structures will push the industry even further toward IPv6 adoption.

Conclusion

Roy Amara, and more famously Bill Gates both have said “Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.”. Yet here we are only a few weeks into the year and already major changes are being made.

Will these changes have major consequences for their providers? We really can't be sure yet, but what we can be sure of is IaaS providers are seeing a multi-cloud IPv6 native world right around the corner. We're happy that the Cycle platform was built with an IPv6 first attitude and that for most of our users, going fully IPv6 isn't a technical implementation problem but really just a matter of making sure end users can reach data centers via IPv6 networks (for public IP).

Either way it's looking like we're off to a great year!

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