Alphabet’s Google Cloud said it would waive network fees for those looking to transfer their data to an alternative cloud provider.
Traditionally, cloud providers such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon.com’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) impose charges based on the volume of data transferred during the transition between vendors, Reuters news report said.
Google Cloud in its website said storage transfer service price is $0.0125 per GB for Agent-based transfers to or from file systems. Google Cloud website said customers incur transfer charges when transferring data from a Cloud Storage bucket to another Cloud Storage bucket. For more information, see Network pricing.
This practice has drawn scrutiny, with Britain’s media regulator Ofcom expressing concerns about the potential deterrent effect on customers seeking to switch providers. In October, Ofcom raised the issue, prompting the country’s antitrust authority to investigate the dominance of tech giants in the UK cloud market.
While the elimination of data transfer fees aims to simplify the process of changing cloud providers, Amit Zavery, Head of Platform at Google Cloud, emphasized in a blog post that the primary impediment to customer migration lies in restrictive and unfair licensing practices. Amit Zavery stated, “Making it easier for customers to move from one provider to another does little to improve choice if customers remain locked in with restrictive licenses.”
Google Cloud in its website said Storage Transfer Service generates charges only for bytes transferred to the destination successfully. If Storage Transfer Service retries an object transfer that failed, the initial bytes moved on the failed request are not billed. Similarly, if you start an incremental transfer, you are not billed for files that haven’t changed from the previous transfer, because Storage Transfer Service doesn’t re-transfer the file.
Amazon’s AWS leads the cloud computing market, with Azure following closely behind. Google Cloud is the third largest Cloud provider. Both Google and Amazon had previously cited challenges arising from Microsoft’s terms of service, asserting that these terms hindered customers’ ability to switch providers.
Effective Thursday, the removal of data transfer fees applies to all Google Cloud customers globally, signaling a customer-centric approach to addressing migration challenges within the cloud computing industry.
Baburajan Kizhakedath
