You needed a database to store tool data.
You needed a server to run interpreted languages like PHP, Python, or Ruby.
The cloud abstracts and simplifies the complexity of managing the infrastructure mentioned above.
Instead of thinking about servers, you think of services and instances of services.
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This approach aims to reduce servers and services to something more like a function call.
More than 20 years later, web-based program developers lives are surely easier, arent they?
No, not really.
There are many issues with developing and maintaining apps that run in the cloud.
Thankfully, several European operators are trying to make developers lives easier again.
Before getting to them, heres a quick terminology guide.
The main difference is that the provider carves out a digital tranche of territory just for that customer.
With that in mind, lets dig into the problems in the cloud computing world.
The other two only host roughly another 12% combined.
Yet with these statistics, defining what constitutes a website is complicated.
This has caused problems in the past.
Remember the various times when large amounts of online services were unavailable?
That was probably due to one of these major companies experiencing an outage.
This solves a technical issue but brings more revenue to all cloud providers and increases complexity.
This consolidation puts a tremendous amount of power into a handful of companies.
If they change their policies, thousands of businesses could be left without a place to run.
No matter how unlikely some things can seem, consolidation is always dangerous.
Diversifying the cloud
Developers and their companies do not want to completely switch away from the cloud.
These trends create new global opportunities for alternative hosting providers, new and old, especially in Europe.
Areport from IT support firm AAGfound that82% of respondents find cloud spending challenging.
People are now accustomed to more user-friendly interfaces.
If AWS arrived today with its byzantine UI, the service might struggle to attract as many users.
For Europes cloud competitors, this presents an opportunity.
Hetzners approach is similar.
Cost efficiency
One of the biggest motivations in the current climate is cutting costs.
Granted, actual usage is likely also increased.
Around the time of KubeCon EU 2024, Broadcom had recently acquired VMWare and announced significant pricing changes.
All three hosts emphasised the importance of allowing customers to switch between providers.
The most controversial of these policies is charging for egress, i.e.
the cost of moving data from a cloud service, which can makemulti-cloudhosting prohibitively expensive.
OVH has pledged not to apply these charges.
The cloud should be free.
This enables our customers to balance workloads and have free choice.
This is part of our tagline, and as far as tools are concerned, we use open standards.
This is a growing trend amongst providers.
As Majrekar notes, We recently got rid of egress charges altogether.
So thats something you dont have to worry about.
For OVH, that provides a chance to offer a more trustworthy service.
Hetzner has made the issue a key selling point.
Hosting that aligns with sustainability goals is becoming increasingly important.
Deep Green uses multiple methods to reuse the heat that servers generate.
For example, the companysubmerges serversin a special liquid, heating that water and using it for other purposes.
Deep Green and Civo arent the only partners trying this idea in Europe.
Swiss hostInfomaniak doessomething similar.
These projects are a great example of how Europes typically denser cities can use colocation.
Fdida thinks the next challenge for providers will be quantum computing.
Quantum will drastically change the way we look at workloads, he said.
And we have a real one hosted in our facilities with a company.
Another issue for the future will be complexity.
Mark Boost of Civo hopes that moving forward will also mean a return to simpler times.
Id love to see us get to that place, and I think the future will be that.
Story byChris Chinchilla
Technology writer, podcaster, and video maker by day.
Fiction, games, and music by night.
chrischinchilla.comTechnology writer, podcaster, and video maker by day.
Fiction, games, and music by night.
