I have heard the phase (fear of) “vendor lock-in” used several times in the last few weeks associated with cloud providers. I’ve been wondering if there really is such a thing? By that I mean taking advantage of any cloud provider facilities/capabilities may save you time and reduce cost. Moving to another provider just means mapping your interfaces/functions to the new provider features or else implementing what is missing.

This means that you are not locked in in the sense of never being able to change providers. To me it means that if you should ever have to move you might have to use some of the money that you saved in the first place to implement or re-architect what does not exist in the new environment.

If you do not take advantage of any provider facilities you have increased your costs and lengthened the schedule for a potential future move that might never be necessary or happen.