Cloud platforms offer scalability and innovation but also increase dependency on vendor-specific services. This vendor lock-in limits portability and complicates future migration. This thesis investigates how vendor dependency and system portability can be assessed quantitatively to support more informed architectural decision-making.

Organizations increasingly rely on cloud providers such as AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. These platforms offer significant advantages, including scalability, managed services and faster time-to-market. However, these benefits often come with increased dependency on vendor-specific services, introducing the risk of vendor lock-in. As a result, organizations face a fundamental trade-off between maximizing the value of the cloud and maintaining long-term flexibility.

Vendor lock-in limits an organization’s ability to migrate systems to alternative providers, potentially leading to increased costs, reduced flexibility and strategic dependency. Organizations currently lack concrete tools to assess how dependent they are on specific vendors and what that implies for future change.

The Assignment

Despite widespread awareness of vendor lock-in, it is typically assessed qualitatively or based on anecdotal evidence. There is no widely accepted quantitative method to assess how strongly a software system depends on a specific vendor or how easily it can be adapted or migrated across environments. As a result, architects and decision-makers lack objective tools to evaluate the trade-offs between innovation, convenience and long-term flexibility.

The goal of this thesis is to design and validate an approach for assessing vendor dependency and the resulting degree of portability within a system. By making these aspects more explicit and measurable, the research aims to support more informed architectural decision-making.

About Info Support

Info Support specializes in custom software, data/AI solutions, management, and training and is active in the Finance, Industry, Agriculture, Food & Retail, Mobility & Public, and Healthcare sectors. We provide solid and innovative solutions for complex and critical software issues. Our headquarters are located in Veenendaal (NL) and Mechelen (BE). At present, approximately 500 employees are employed by Info Support.

Info Support's working method is characterized by a number of core values: solidity, integrity, craftsmanship, and passion. These core values are intertwined in our work and the way we interact with each other.

To ensure that all employees are always up to date with the latest developments, Info Support has an in-house IT Academy that eagerly satisfies the hunger for more or different knowledge and skills.

B2 language proficiency in Dutch is required.