Contents
In brief
The provider operates the cloud. You configure what you put in it. Most painful incidents live on the second side of that sentence.
Original CloudExchangers explainer. It describes established public practice and labels the desk’s judgment as analysis. It is not a report of a newly announced event.
The line moves, the idea does not
Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud each publish a version of the same idea. The provider is responsible for the operation of the underlying cloud. The customer is responsible for identity, data, and the configuration of the services they choose. The line moves toward the provider as you buy a more managed service, and back toward you as you take virtual machines and networks. Google’s documentation adds a further argument it calls shared fate: that telling customers the line exists is not the same as helping them land on the safe side of it. The argument does not delete the line.
