In the early days of the cloud transition from ‘on-prem’ systems, the industry operated as the end of physical constraints, or in some cases, all constraints. Cloud technology was said to grant infinite scalability, planetary reach, and a "pay-for-what-you-use" model through outsourced high-performance infrastructures. This is what many call the Cloud 1.0 era.
For some time, providers stayed true to this model, and it served us well. In fact, thanks to that tech boom, we saw some of the most important services we use today. But as the space leaned further towards a hyperscale monoculture, several constraints emerged. It was as if the goal was to wait till all our lives depended on cloud technology untilthe intended model was revealed. The biggest of these constraints today is the punitive cost of data access and movement, which we call the "Cloud Tax", with egress fees being the top culprit on this one.
Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads where technical excellence is being stifled by financial friction. For the modern Chief Technology Officer or Lead Cloud/DevOps Engineer, the conversation has shifted from "How do we scale and innovate our product?" to "How much are we spending on cloud bills?” But team leaders are losing control over how much they are spending on cloud costs; there is something bigger at play here, and that’s Data Sovereignty.
Data Sovereignty as a principle usually comes up as a case where data is subject to the laws and governance of the country where it is located, basically a territorial attribute of data. But that concept can also apply to an entity; the ability to own, access, and manage their data, with little or no friction and punitive measures. These days, ‘sovereignty’ is trapped behind a financial firewall, a typical “Hotel California” scenario. If it costs a fortune in egress fees to move your data to comply with a new regulation, you don't actually own that data; you are merely renting access to it. This is why zero egress is the foundation of true digital freedom.
By making it frictionless to ingest data (ingress) but expensive to move it out or even access it from another region (egress), legacy cloud providers have created an ‘infinite money glitch’ for themselves, but at the expense of businesses and countries.
Consider this scenario where it was most probably free to upload a dataset of around 500 terabytes. So let’s say you really need to a more compliant or convenient region, or even a more specialized provider for your needs at that point, under the current pricing models of major providers, moving that data to a more compliant or convenient region, or a more specialized provider for the client’s needs at that point, can incur costs in the region of $10,000. When the financial penalty for moving data is that high, the "choice" to move becomes an illusion. The data becomes geographically and sentimentally locked by that provider.
If a regulatory body suddenly mandates that your company must move its customer data to a local jurisdiction to satisfy national data localization laws, which has been very common lately, the egress fee functions as a compliance penalty, even in dire situations. You may have the legal right to your data, but it comes at some conditions and cost to access and control that data. True sovereignty requires fluidity. Without the ability to move data across borders or providers without heavy financial consequences, your company’s strategic roadmap and potential for growth are being written by a vendor’s billing department rather than your own technical requirements.
The justification often cited for high egress fees is the cost of maintaining global fiber networks. While the fact remains that infrastructure is indeed expensive, the wholesale cost of bandwidth has plummeted. The massive disconnect between the actual cost of transit and the markups charged by hyperscalers suggests that the Cloud Tax is more of a strategic tool for lock-in, not a recovery of costs.
However, a key principle in the design of Orbon Cloud is our belief that data sovereignty is a client right. We built our solution based on this principle and have provided a utility for a zero-egress-fee cloud storage model, not by discount, but by design. Our team of engineers and mathematicians spent a lot of time developing high-level mathematical modeling to data routing, and we’ve indeed identified how to eliminate the egress tax. It isn't about being "cheap"; it’s about achieving radical efficiency through an intelligent utility model. When you remove the financial friction of data movement, sovereignty stops being a budget line item and starts being a technical reality. A zero-egress-fee model allows an architect to design a system where data is placed where it is legally required or technically superior, rather than where it is most expensive to escape.
And the best part of this solution? It doesn’t need you to scrap your existing architecture. We call it a “utility” for a reason: because it’s compatible. Reclaiming sovereignty does not require a "rip and replace" of your entire existing stack. We recognize that many businesses have their current cloud environments deeply rooted in the legacy Cloud 1.0 providers. Why not create a solution that complements, not replaces? That’s why the Orbon Cloud storage utility is designed to stack on top of your existing architecture.
Our entry point is the S3-Compatible Hot Replica. By pointing your replication target at Orbon Cloud for disaster recovery via APIs, you are making your first step towards data sovereignty. And because our storage is 100% S3 API-compatible, the integration with what you currently have is seamless. You get global redundancy and self-healing reliability for all your backups, while eliminating egress fees on every restore.
As this replica grows, the strategic power returns to the architect. The latency drops, and the egress bill disappears. Over time, the Sovereignty Gap closes, not through a risky migration, but through the steady application of an intelligent utility that gives you your time and money back.
We aren’t here telling you to take our word for it. The first entry for our solution is via a proof-of-concept trial. We do urge all our clients to first try our solution in a fee-free, risk-free, commitment-free environment, so that they understand our solution better. It turns out that people appreciate your service more when you already slash their current cloud storage spend by 60% or more, which is what we help you achieve.
Want to give it a spin today? Register for a trial on our website.
Data sovereignty is often discussed as a legal burden or a hurdle to be cleared. But in a world that is egress-free, sovereignty becomes a competitive advantage. It allows for a multi-cloud strategy that actually works and active resilience that isn't cost-prohibitive.
The era of the "Hotel California" cloud is coming to an end. We are entering the age of Cloud 2.0 and The Autonomic Cloud, where the cloud manages itself and the "Cloud Tax" is a thing of the past. Your data belongs to you, not just the right to store it, but the freedom to move it. That freedom begins with Orbon.
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