Organisations should seek to justify the project investment before embarking on a cloud project by identifying and quantifying the benefits.
There is without doubt a growing trend for organisations to leverage cloud-based solutions, with three options to choose from when deciding which model to adopt – public, private or a hybrid cloud combining elements of both public and private.
Despite the growing trend, organisations should still seek to justify the project investment before embarking on a cloud project by identifying and quantifying the benefits.
Like most change initiatives, the benefits for cloud are a combination of the tangible and intangible. Below is a list of the most compelling benefits that are emerging for organisations that are driving the rapid adoption of cloud solutions.
Ease of use
By pooling resources and better configuration, cloud service providers can deliver a greatly enhanced user experience by increasing the ease of use of applications and services. The reasons for the increase in ease of use can include more remote access options with enhanced reliability and support, increased self-service opportunities and increases in speed of delivery.
Pay as you go models
Cloud solutions can remove the need for large investment in infrastructure up front. This enables cloud providers to offer pay as you go transactional models to organisations. These models can deliver real savings to organisations as they are only billed for what they use.
Virtual infrastructure that is highly scalable
When adopting cloud solutions organisations can essentially outsource both their infrastructure and applications layers. By moving these things into the cloud organisations can not only reduce replacement, maintenance and support costs but also take advantage of highly scalable, non static IT environments.
Reduced complexity of IT environments
It would be incorrect to say cloud environments are not complex; they are however a large portion of this complexity is outsourced to the Cloud provider. But by leveraging cloud solutions, particularly public cloud solutions, the need to manage these complex environments is transferred from the organisation’s IT department to the cloud service providers.
Reduce the cost of customisation
Whilst cloud platforms often allow a customised development opportunity for the user, the core of the cloud service is standardised and quarantined from this customised layer. This separation enables upgrades to the core service without impacting the customisations. Unlike in-house IT managed platforms where heavily intertwined layers mean upgrades can be costly and time consuming.
Data storage
The cloud can be leveraged to store an organisation’s data by replacing existing on-site data storage facilities like data centres. This can enable organisations to decommission costly storage facilities and only pay for the data they actually need to store.
Ultimately the benefits of any new solution must be weighed against the risks, costs and other relevant factors in play for the organisation.
It is important for organisations to resist simply following the latest trends for the sake of it. This is no different when considering the use of the cloud. Organisations should continue to deploy good project disciplines by ensuring the benefits are fully researched and understood up front before embarking upon any change.
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