> "The cloud" is a set of APIs for provisioning but also a bunch of managed services that surround your instances, pub/sub, DNS, load balancers, managed SQL. All of this is almost designed to be a vendor lock-in.
A lot of it is, but I strongly disagree that all of it is. Many of these are perfectly interchangeable with the exact same software (FOSS DBMS, web server, load balancer, etc.) running on a competitor's managed service, VPS or on your own premises. As for the services that aren't, I do think the IT architects and managers who agree to use them are absolutely crazy and ought to be fired. If all of them are fired, cloud providers would be forced to provide interoperable provisioning APIs and services or perish.
> However, disregarding the vendor lock-in: How does my OS integrating with AWS's APIs help my on-prem services?
I suppose it doesn't, but why should it? If you think they bloat up your local installation, maybe you can just not install the kernel modules/daemons/libraries in question.
A lot of it is, but I strongly disagree that all of it is. Many of these are perfectly interchangeable with the exact same software (FOSS DBMS, web server, load balancer, etc.) running on a competitor's managed service, VPS or on your own premises. As for the services that aren't, I do think the IT architects and managers who agree to use them are absolutely crazy and ought to be fired. If all of them are fired, cloud providers would be forced to provide interoperable provisioning APIs and services or perish.
> However, disregarding the vendor lock-in: How does my OS integrating with AWS's APIs help my on-prem services?
I suppose it doesn't, but why should it? If you think they bloat up your local installation, maybe you can just not install the kernel modules/daemons/libraries in question.