Going to the Cloud is easy, getting out is a lot tougher!

Everyone is pushing you to take your business to the cloud, right?  It's easy, right?  The sales rep used all the right words in his pitch.  Lower cost!  Let them handle the infrastructure issues!  It's in a safe off-site data center! 

All of that may be very true BUT . . . and there's a BIG but . . . what happens if you don't like the way the program operates once you're in or your needs change and you want to move on to something else?

Nobody ever talks about getting your precious data out of the cloud once you've put it out there.  Certainly the sales reps never expect you to leave so they never mention it.

We've recently been asked to help a client get out of a cloud application now that they've found that it doesn't work all that well.  Contacting the cloud vendor about getting the client's data back was a real experience.  Of course, their initial reaction was "Gee, no one have ever asked to leave before!".  I won't belabor the point that the vendor software never worked as well with live data as it did in the demo.  Let's just say that the client's staff was frustrated beyond words trying to get their jobs done with it.

After the vendor's staff got over the shock of someone actually not liking their software or their support service, they admitted that they would have to find out from their tech staff how to extract the data.  Finally, the call came about returning  the clients data and the essence of the conversation was "It's gonna cost you! And not just a little, a lot!"  Then they hit me with the kicker.  When they return the data, it will be in a format that will be virtually unusable unless we write our own data extraction program to reformat it into something we can use.

They've got our client over a barrel!  Either they pay the "export fee"/ransom or they don't get their data in electronic format at all.

A WORD OF ADVICE BEFORE PUTTING YOUR BUSINESS OUT IN THE CLOUD - Always consider your exit strategy from any application whether it be server-based or cloud-based.  Your business changes and you may need to change software someday.  If your data needs to be pulled out of a program on your server, at least you have the source data in hand.  If your data is out there in the cloud, you don't have that luxury.  You're at their mercy if you want to get it back.  Make sure you always have an exit strategy and your vendor has detailed for you the steps (and costs) of moving on to a new vendor.

PS.  Get it in writing!

Need guidance on software vendor selection?  Call ACT at (847) 639-7000 or via e-mail at support@act4networks.com.