Re: Teething problems, or something worse?

Data out is certainly more interesting than data in. Just what incentive do the cloud vendors have to help you remove the data after you've threatened to move elsewhere? I wouldn't be surprised if most or all of them offer import "somehow" if you kick up a fuss but not export at all.

Do you really want to extend your contract by another month/year so that you can repeat the "guy on a plane with a NAS" trip in the hope of somehow getting all your business data back? Or spend quite literally weeks redownloading it all before you can move off to another provider? Or have to post them a huge drive array and wait for them to copy all your data out at their convenience and then pay to send it back to you?

Cloud is one of those ideas that STILL doesn't know what it's supposed to be used for. There are lots of use cases, of course, but none for which cloud is the "optimal" solution.

If you are storing PETABYTES of business critical data and requiring cloud-level redundancy and availability, are you seriously telling me that you COULDN'T buy servers yourself around the world and do it cheaper with your existing talent?