Money can be stressful. And when you’re under pressure to modernize your enterprise technology, cost is a top — if not the top — factor your executive team cares about. How much bang are we going to get for our buck?
While cloud technology has made our processes, infrastructure and applications more streamlined, advanced and accessible, total cost of ownership (TCO) is just as confusing now as it was 30 years ago, when Gartner popularized the term to define the long-term cost of maintenance in addition to the upfront price of an enterprise technology.
In my latest article for InfoWorld, I write about the challenges in determining true costs and returns you can anticipate when migrating to the cloud, as well as how you can set aside confusing jargon, tune out vendor hype, and realize your business priorities before leaping into the cloud.
As cloud adoption enters its second decade, many organizations have stopped looking at their datacenter as the default and have instead adopted a cloud-first mentality. The problem is that no two applications are alike. While the first decade of cloud was driven by new application development in, for, and tailored to the cloud’s characteristics, customers are now trying to gain the same agility and scale benefits they’ve experienced with cloud-native applications for the legacy systems running their businesses. Unfortunately, many of these customers end up with unanticipated and massive bills for cloud migration, professional services, ongoing maintenance and unpredictable usage.
Read more about the costs of modernization and how to establish and communicate priorities in my InfoWorld blog, Candid Cloud. And if you’re interested in seeing what Skytap Cloud can do for your business, take this quick guided tour through our capabilities for modernizing traditional applications in the cloud.