What to Ask a Cloud Provider About Its Roadmap to 2027

Cloud providers often publish predictions about new zones, GPUs and features. Roadmaps change, so the useful question for a buyer is not what a provider predicts but what it runs today and how it commits to future capacity. This article sets out the questions to ask about zones, GPUs and platform features, using MarQi Cloud’s published facts as a worked example. It is not a MarQi Cloud product announcement.

Zones and Locations

1. What Is Live Today?

Ask which zones are live, which are announced and which are only planned. Capacity you can deploy into today is different from a zone under construction. At MarQi Cloud, Zone1 in Alpharetta, Georgia is live and Zone2 is announced and under construction; it is not available capacity yet.

2. Edge and Latency

If latency matters, measure round-trip time from your users to the live zones rather than relying on future edge locations. Edge sites help some workloads, such as IoT and real-time analytics, but most storage and compute still run in central zones.

3. Redundancy and Compliance

Ask whether cross-zone redundancy is available now or only on the roadmap, and which compliance obligations stay with you in each location. For MarQi Cloud, cross-zone redundancy is a roadmap item, not a current option, and MarQi Cloud does not claim certification under GDPR or HIPAA.

GPUs

1. How GPUs Are Offered

Ask whether GPUs are dedicated or shared, and how they are priced. MarQi Cloud runs dedicated GPU clusters as a separate compute pool with direct PCIe passthrough and no GPU oversubscription; its GPU nodes are quoted per build.

2. Hardware Refresh

New GPU generations arrive every year or two. Ask how the provider decides when to refresh hardware and how running workloads move to new nodes. At MarQi Cloud, hardware refreshes are an in-house engineering decision.

3. Graphics and Visualization

Rendering and visualization workloads have different needs from AI training, such as display drivers and remote graphics protocols. Confirm support for your specific software before assuming a GPU platform fits.

Platform Features

Feature roadmaps are the least predictable part of any plan, so focus on what you can use and test today.

1. Automation

Ask which routine tasks the platform automates today, such as provisioning, snapshots and backups, and which are planned. MarQi Cloud runs Apache CloudStack on KVM hypervisors, and every plan includes VPN, load balancer, snapshots and backups.

2. Security

Look for controls you can use today, such as isolation, encryption and access controls, and for clear documentation of who is responsible for what.

3. Management Interface and Integrations

Check whether the platform exposes standard APIs and tools so your existing automation can manage it. Open source stacks such as CloudStack and KVM make it easier to move workloads in or out.

4. Pricing

Ask for published unit prices rather than promised future pricing models. MarQi Cloud publishes unit pricing: USD 2 per vCPU and USD 2 per GB of RAM per month, USD 0.13 per GB of block storage per month, and no egress fees.

Conclusion

Roadmaps are useful context, but contracts and architectures should be built on what a provider runs today. Ask what is live, what is announced and what is only planned, and plan around the first category.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Is this article a MarQi Cloud roadmap announcement?

No. It explains what to ask about any provider’s roadmap; MarQi Cloud describes its zones on its Our Zones page.

2. Which MarQi Cloud zones are live?

Only Zone1, in Alpharetta, Georgia. Zone2 has been announced and is being built.

3. Does MarQi Cloud offer GPU as a Service?

MarQi Cloud offers dedicated GPU clusters with direct PCIe passthrough; GPU nodes are quoted per build rather than billed pay-as-you-go.

4. How does edge computing affect latency?

Processing data near where it is produced cuts round-trip time, which helps real-time workloads such as IoT.

5. Does MarQi Cloud offer cross-zone redundancy today?

Not yet; it is on the roadmap. Recovery planning today relies on snapshots and backups.

6. What should I ask about a provider’s security roadmap?

Ask which controls are available today, such as isolation, encryption and access controls, rather than which are planned.

7. How can I contact MarQi Cloud?

By phone at +1-770-369-9321 or by email at support@marqi.cloud.