The cloud offers a number of decisive advantages for businesses. But before taking advantage of it, you need to consider a number of points in detail, and stay focused on your real needs. Migration to the cloud is an ambitious and complex project, and one that will help you create your own business case.
Don't succumb to the marketing sirens of cloud providers. Think before you act! Businesses involved in cloud integration need to start by studying the different aspects and technologies of the cloud.
This preamble is essential to understanding how it will affect performance, safety and workload.
Real needs
Financial considerations are important, as we'll see in the next paragraph. But the first step is to focus on the company's real IT service needs.
Various studies have confirmed that improved services, infrastructure agility and enhanced security (even if, paradoxically, there are still major concerns about data confidentiality...) are the three criteria put forward by professionals.
So before you take the plunge, it's essential to consider how the cloud might (or might not in certain specific cases) meet your priorities: optimizing business processes, reducing infrastructure complexity, managing your growth, reducing time-to-market for your solutions...
Business Case: Real costs
A 2016 report from Forrester Research reminded us that the key to avoiding costly mistakes is to build a solid business case. That analysis starts with... your own on-site infrastructure costs.
Step one:
Gather and study all current costs (including hardware, software, real estate, personnel....) to maintain your infrastructure. s data centers. This procedure is more complex than it sounds, because specific expenses linked to a facility may be spread over different budgets.
Second step :
Track down neglected costs. Operational costs are often limited to personnel, hardware purchases, maintenance contracts and software licenses. Other expenses are overlooked: IT team training, electricity costs, capital expenditure, etc.
Step three:
Identify each item that will be affected by the migration and indicate where the savings will come from.
To be truly exhaustive, this approach can be based on the Target Operating Model. This is a description of how your IT organization works in its entirety.
This operational model is not just an inventory of processes. It must spell out how work is done, taking into account people, processes and technologies.
Then you can compare all these costs with the rates offered by cloud providers for one-off and recurring requests.
The business model for these services is complex and full of variability.
Estimates should include infrastructure savings, operating costs, developer productivity, application performance, speed and agility.
Because costs can rise rapidly if you don't keep a close eye on the behavior and "profitability" of applications in the cloud... But according to a study by KPMG, companies typically spend over 30% of their budget on infrastructure. The cloud can save between 10 and 20% of their annual IT budget.
Business Case: Real options
To take advantage of the cloud, the right applications need to be paired with the right cloud deployment options. As Forrester Research points out, the dynamics of the business case vary according to the cloud service model.
For example, IaaS often attracts those looking for greater scalability, not necessarily the commercial advantage presented by SaaS. Each cloud deployment option has its own specific benefits, costs and risks.
By creating a business case, you can identify the key points and see what the cloud can do for you. One of the main benefits is to free you from services or functionalities that don't add value.
But we mustn't neglect the future of our own infrastructure and IT staff either (for example, the need for training to master new tools). The shift to the cloud also means rethinking your internal organization.
