Alternative clouds are vulnerable to demanding buyers

Although big-name hyperscalers such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft dominate the cloud arena, other companies also believe they have a role to play. Vultr, OVHcloud, Linode, DigitalOcean, Bluehost and Scaleway, for example, don’t offer huge portfolios of cutting-edge products but their products focus on simplicity and low cost for smaller businesses with relatively straightforward requirements.

The hallmark of the cloud is the ability to provision resources remotely and pay by credit card. But these resources are no longer just virtual machines — hyperscalers have evolved to offer vast portfolios, from software containers to artificial intelligence. Microsoft Azure claims to offer 200 products and services, for example, with each product having different variations and sizes in different regions and at different prices. Hyperscaler cloud providers have millions of individual line items for sale. Users must choose the best combination of these products for their requirements and architect them into an application.