Glossary
Walled Garden
What is a walled garden?
On the internet, a walled garden refers to an environment where the provider tightly controls user access to network-based content and services. Think of it as a closed, controlled ecosystem. Users and applications can operate effectively inside the walled garden environment, but moving data, workloads, or tools outside the ecosystem is often restricted, costly, or technically difficult.
Service providers like Facebook and Apple, for example, control all software, hardware, content, and general data movement within their platforms, restricting user access to external applications or data. This strategy locks in users and creates a curated, secure experience that is often difficult to leave.
Walled Gardens in cloud and data storage
In cloud and data infrastructure, a walled garden is often used to describe platforms that rely on proprietary APIs, charge high data egress fess, restrict compatibility with external tools, and discourage multi-cloud architectures.
Reliance on proprietary APIs
Instead of relying solely on open standards (like S3-compatible APIs or open table formats), a platform may use proprietary APIs for advanced features or add vendor-specific extensions that break portability. With this, applications become tightly coupled together under the umbrella of one provider. Over time, the deeper the integration, the harder it becomes to leave.
High data egress fees
High fees and data egress pricing is a common characteristic of a cloud walled garden. Cloud providers might charge for outbound data transfers, for cross-region replication, or charge API and retrieval fees. This makes extracting large datasets—especially typical in AI training data or backups—can become expensive. This financial friction discourages migration and creates cost prohibitions to multi-cloud replication.
Restricted tool compatibility
Limited tool interoperability is another hallmark of a walled garden. When ecosystem tools are tightly integrated but external tools require workarounjds, organizations gradually consolidate inside one environment for simplicity. This reduces architectural flexibility and results in slower adoption of best-in-breed tools.
Discouraging multi-cloud architectures
Though multi-cloud strategies are often marketed as supported, there is often some friction that discourages this approach, including:
Higher costs for cross-cloud transfer
Operational complexity when mixing environments
Performance optimizations that favor native services
Compliance tooling designred around one provider
With walled garden setups, hybrid-clouds and multi-clouds are technically possible, but economically or operationally unattractive.
Risks and limitations of walled gardens
While walled garden environments can deliver optimized performance, security, and simplicity, they can also reduce flexibility and increase long-term costs. As well, walled gardens are commonly associated with vendor lock-in, limited interoperability, and reduced portability.
Open vs. walled garden architectures
Organizations increasingly seek open, interoperable architectures that avoid walled garden limitations by supporting standard APIs, portable data formats, and seamless integration across platforms. Open cloud storage approaches—such as those aligned with the principles promoted by Wasabi Technologies—help enable data freedom, predictable pricing, and the ability to move data without barriers.
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