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When it comes to the cloud, IT professionals will by now be entirely familiar with the hows and the whys. For many, its an essential and its this pervasive sentiment thats responsible for businesses migrating to the cloud in their droves. Yet not all businesses may need the cloud; or at least, not to the same degree. For some, the costs may even outweigh the benefits.

The complete guide to cloud economics

Improve decision-making, avoid risk, reduce costs and accelerate cloud adoption

By cost, we can refer to much more than the upfront monetary amount attached to a technology. In business terms costs can be calculated more precisely by calculating an exact ROI, taking into account measurements for success. This by definition, however, is very difficult to precisely achieve before the initial investment is made.

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Subsequently, enterprises can find themselves firmly committed to the cloud, and they can only watch as costs continue to spiral out of control. Therefore its essential to try and uncover as many costs as possible before making the migration journey.

Cloud migration is never a simple process. Pitfalls can wait either in plain sight- such as upfront monetary costs, often large but easily legislated for - or in the shadows. Its these hidden costs that are the real debilitator. Without thorough planning nor technical understanding, enterprises may find themselves far over budget and in too deep to escape.

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Most principal among the hidden costs are those which are operational and recurring, such as the pay-as-you-go cloud model offered by vendors. Without the required level of expertise within the enterprise, pay-as-you-go models may be misunderstood.

Enterprises can pay for vast amounts of cloud storage to house swathes of data. With no storage limit, data will continue to be stored on the cloud servers bringing an incremental cost. Whats more, its likely that most of this data doesnt need to be stored in the cloud. On-premise servers still have a role to play, while many enterprises are guilty of blanket decisions when it comes to data, rather than taking the time to sift through whats relevant and important to maintain.

To shine light on this blind spot enterprises must ensure their in-house IT departments are brimming with relevant expertise. Existing employees can be upskilled to plug skills-gaps, but sooner or later there will be a problem or a technology that stretches the department to breaking point.

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Acquiring external talent at some point down the road is unavoidable, in the form of consultants, new hires, and vendor support. Due to the unpredictability of cloud migrations, both in terms of surfacing issues and in the introduction of emerging technologies, having the foresight to realise which specific skills are going to be required down the line is not always apparent, adding to this expense.

This unpredictability stems from the fact that organisations will want to tailor their cloud technology to integrateseamlessly with their existing set of systems. As the web of infrastructure expands it becomes more difficult to maintain optimum performance levels because of the complexity that customisation brings. As deployments are scaled their problems and complexities are too magnified, forcing the enterprise to invest in additional resources.

Though the specific amount of hidden costs remain a mystery until they are encountered, that doesnt mean that when devising a cloud migration budget, they shouldnt be accounted for. Budgets should have buffering capacity and be scalable, alike the cloud technology it will be invested in.

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It's certain that the cloud migration journey is by nature unpredictable, yet there is one consistent element that can be counted on: change. The enterprise and cloud migrations are both dynamic. Performance requirements, changes in usage and market needs, vendor support packages, will all be affected at one point or another.

This acts as one of the major advantages and disadvantages of the cloud. On the other hand, on-premise infrastructures also suffer from these faults.

Enterprises can starttheir cloud journeys by taking an audit of current IT infrastructure costs in order to reveal what they are currently paying. Then try and estimate the potential cloud infrastructure costs. For this there must be an understanding of the network, storage, and database capacity required to run applications selected to operate on the cloud, Typically cloud pricing structures are quite complex, however vendors are increasingly simplifying their offerings.

The complete guide to cloud economics

Improve decision-making, avoid risk, reduce costs and accelerate cloud adoption

With the costs of cloud migration identified, its up to the individual enterprise only to decide whether the journey is worthwhile. Budgets, industries, and priorities vary, but what is certain is that at least partial migrations to the cloud will bring a host of benefits that ultimately do make businesses more competitive.

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For those struggling to finance migrations, it may be time to look for more cost-effective methods. Cloud migrations do not need to happen en masse. Internal inspections can dictate which applications will benefit the most from integrating with the cloud. If the value isnt foreseen in transferring a certain application, then dont.

Of course, risk is a factor in every decision, particularly one with high financial implications. Enterprises can complete a thorough risk analysis by uncovering the hidden costs of their planned cloud migration and comparing them to existing costs and their risk appetite. Risks cant be eradicated but they can be accounted for.

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Uncovering the hidden costs of cloud migration - IT PRO