Summary Bullets:
• Verizon told customers it is discontinuing its Public Cloud Reserved Performance and Marketplace public cloud services in April and that clients of the former will need to migrate their virtual machines to another environment, preferably its own Virtual Private Cloud.
• While the company is sunsetting its credit card cloud service, Verizon will continue to support other IaaS solutions including Cloud Storage
More changes are afoot in the public cloud as yet another provider pulls the plug on its credit card payment-accepting IaaS offer. Verizon is ending support for its Public Cloud Reserved Performance on-demand compute service this spring. The provider is also shutting down its cloud marketplace in April, ending the company’s first shot at building an online catalog that would compete against similar cloud storefronts from the likes of Amazon and Microsoft.
Verizon has not disclosed whether it will make another run at the cloud marketplace in a new iteration. However, in light of the company’s relative silence on all things cloud in recent months–and word on the street that the provider is exploring selling off its facilities–at the very least Verizon is taking stock of what role it best fits in the future of the cloud.
The company, which once had grand designs on the public cloud with ambitions to play a spoiler role to dominant provider Amazon, has retreated from making big marketing declarations of late. While a number of organizational and executive changes have most certainly affected Verizon’s approach, the biggest factor is probably the fast evolving market itself. As a handful of public cloud providers that boast massive scale and lengthy customer lists rise to the top, more secondary and tertiary players are looking for exit plans, many of which involve concentrating on private cloud or leaving the cloud stage altogether. While it remains to be seen what Verizon’s future play will be, it is clear that more changes are coming.
What is your perspective on Verizon’s decision to end support for its public cloud compute service? What role do you see the company playing in the cloud?
IT Connection 