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Am a relatively noob machine learning engineer interested in DevOps and Software Development, sorry for the vague and opinion based question.

But multiple blogs and tutorials teaching some cloud concepts advise me against using services that will result in vendor lock in, but do not make clear what kind of services are they.

As an example, if I am using automated scripts to manage cloud server boot ups etc. then should I use open source scripts like Terraform, instead of AWS or Azure CLI?

When I am orchestrating Docker containers and running web services, should I refrain from using higher level abstractions such as Fargate or ECS, restoring to firing up containers inside an EC2 instance like an on-prem Linux server?

But in any case, I would still have to use very cloud specific solutions and APIs to interact with them, right? For example, Amazon S3 bucket vs Azure blog storage offer similar services, but with different APIs.

Or am I getting the concept somehow entirely wrong, and it means something totally different. Some examples of decisions which do or do not result in the so called vendor lock in will be greatly appreciated.

Apologies for the beginner question again.

Della
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    Avoiding lock-in often means avoiding cloud services, which is where a lot of the value of cloud is. It often means using EC2 instances to install software instead of using services. If you're going that way you might as well stay on-premise or use a cheaper cloud such as digital ocean. – Tim Nov 17 '22 at 18:05
  • @Tim Sorry for being pedantic but do you mean digital ocean cannot lock me in the same way that Aws could? I understand Aws is a behemoth as a company compared to digital ocean, but is there a core technical reason for this difference? – Della Nov 18 '22 at 11:15

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Avoiding lock-in you end up just using virtual machines, rather than cloud provider services. If you're not using cloud services you might as well just use the cheapest reliable VMs you can find.

However, I suggest it's a better approach to take advantage of the selected cloud vendor services and features and not worry about lock in, you'll end up with a more reliable and probably cheaper solution. If you want to move cloud providers it'll be a lot more difficult, but you probably won't do that.

Tim
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