IT and mission leaders often spend numerous budget planning cycles weighing the economics of on-premises versus cloud operations, and that鈥檚 completely understandable鈥攖he math is anything but straightforward. Simply comparing before and after expenditures won鈥檛 get you very far. It鈥檚 really apples to oranges when you start to consider the costs of labor, licenses, equipment, and myriad other line items.
That鈥檚 not to say that cloud won鈥檛 bring immediate operational value. It鈥檚 just that organizations are sometimes caught off guard by some of the expenses that come with the transition, or unsure how to go about measuring and characterizing the financial benefits.
With that in mind, let鈥檚 set the record straight about a few key issues related to cloud economics: