What are the common fees associated with cloud object storage?
Most cloud storage providers impose various fees, including operations, transport, and access fees. Common examples include egress fees for moving data out of the cloud, API-based fees for data operations like reads and writes, and lesser-known fees for features such as object lock and lifecycle policies. Notably, nearly 49% of an organization’s public cloud storage bill can be attributed to these fees rather than actual storage costs.
How do storage tiers impact cloud storage costs?
Cloud providers offer multiple storage tiers to optimize costs based on access frequency and retrieval speed. However, this can complicate billing, as costs vary by tier and region. For instance, while cold storage options may have lower storage fees, they often come with higher data access and retrieval fees, which can significantly increase total costs, especially if data is accessed more frequently than anticipated.
What are the implications of egress fees?
Egress fees are charges incurred when moving data out of a cloud environment, and they can be quite high. These fees are often designed to discourage organizations from switching providers, making it challenging to adopt a multicloud strategy. In fact, organizations reported that egress fees can dramatically inflate their total cost of ownership, sometimes accounting for a significant portion of their cloud storage expenses.