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GoDaddy Discontinues Its AWS Alternative
Web hoster GoDaddy is shuttering its Cloud Servers operation, which it launched last year as a small-business-friendly alternative to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
In a memo sent to users and posted online by TechCrunch, GoDaddy said it will stop supporting Cloud Servers on Dec. 31, 2017. Images and apps by Bitnami, which entered into a partnership with GoDaddy last year to provide application deployment services to developers, will lose support on Nov. 15, 2017.
"Prior to these dates, you will still be able to build new servers, test, clone and destroy servers. There are no changes to your billing cycle or billing rate," GoDaddy said in the memo. "After these dates, your GoDaddy Cloud Server plan(s) will no longer be accessible."
Launched in March 2016, the OpenStack-based Cloud Servers platform was designed to let users quickly provision, test and clone virtual instances under a pay-as-you-go pricing model, similar to what AWS offers with its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), but aimed at smaller organizations. The service was available in 53 markets out of GoDaddy's U.S. datacenters.
"We're looking to make it easy for developers to serve small businesses with the technology they want," said Jeff King, then-general manager of hosting and security at GoDaddy, at last year's launch. "By offering a powerful, yet simple cloud offering that integrates domains, DNS, security and backups all in one place, developers can save time and exceed their clients' expectations."
GoDaddy is directing current Cloud Servers customers to its Virtual Private Servers offering as an alternative, and said that it is working on other transition paths to be announced "in the coming months."
Currently, GoDaddy has 17 million customers worldwide, though it's unclear how many of them use Cloud Servers.