Serverless Lock-In Reality
We went all-in on AWS serverless. Migrating to GCP would take 18 months. Is that actually a problem?
Our stack:
- Lambda for compute
- DynamoDB for data
- API Gateway for routing
- Step Functions for orchestration
- EventBridge for events
- Cognito for auth
Migration estimate to GCP:
- Lambda → Cloud Functions: 3 months
- DynamoDB → Firestore: 6 months (different model)
- Step Functions → Cloud Workflows: 4 months
- Cognito → Firebase Auth: 3 months
- Testing, validation: 2 months
- Total: 18 months
The honest question:
- Will we ever actually migrate? Probably not.
- Has AWS raised prices 10x? No.
- Has AWS service been unreliable? No.
- Saved 60% on infrastructure costs vs self-managed
When lock-in matters:
- Regulatory requirements for multi-cloud
- Acquisition by company using different cloud
- Pricing becomes uncompetitive
Lesson: Lock-in is a risk, not automatically a problem. Quantify it, don't just fear it.