Cloud behemoth AWS says it faces tough competition from on-premises infrastructure, a reversal from its once-proud boast that all workloads would eventually move to the cloud.

In a summary of evidence given to the UK watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), AWS denies that customers have any difficulty switching from its platform. And to demonstrate this, AWS lists examples of customers returning from the cloud to run their IT on-premises.

In the CMA report, AWS says: "building a data center requires significant effort, so the fact that customers are doing it highlights the level of flexibility they have and the attractiveness of moving back to premises."

You read that right – customers find that moving their IT back on-premises versus staying on AWS is so attractive that they are willing to do this despite the major effort. Hardly a resounding endorsement of the benefits of the cloud.