How careful cloud migration can help your business tighten its belt

Today’s enterprises are grappling with a very modern IT dilemma: how to carry out cloud migration as cost-effectively as possible.

According to recent research on the views of IT leaders, more than half of enterprises worldwide (55 percent) believe a move to the cloud is "inevitable." The benefits of migrating to the cloud are now widely-acknowledged -- from replacing unreliable legacy infrastructure that hinders business agility, to providing support for modern, collaborative workloads. Many enterprises’ eagerness to adopt AI technologies is also driving cloud migration. This is because the cloud offers the computing power required to deploy AI models at scale.  

But while these benefits make sense for forward-thinking enterprises, the cost and availability of IT services still cause some concern. Without an unlimited pot of money to draw on, some 58 percent of organizations are revising how they split their budget because of the current economic climate.

The problem for businesses is how to achieve a balanced approach to the cloud -- one that taps into the numerous benefits, while doing so prudently.

Cloud warning signs 

Among the numerous considerations enterprises must plan for, the issue of ‘vendor lock-in’ is one of the most crucial. This occurs when a business is unable to change its cloud infrastructure provider without incurring significant additional costs or time. Indeed, 39 percent of businesses report choosing cloud services that meant they were locked in to using a single cloud infrastructure provider, limiting their ability to take on new digital transformation projects. 

Enterprises can also be affected by a lack of transparency and subsequent unanticipated usage bills that make it difficult to estimate future spending. Coupled with inflexible pricing plans, businesses can struggle to effectively manage their cloud spending. 

These issues contribute to an average overspend on cloud services by 29.23 percent, or $6.54 million annually -- a stat that shows how vital it is for businesses to undertake their cloud migrations with full awareness of potential costs.

As well as attempting to mitigate escalating costs, businesses must ensure they have the skills internally to successfully migrate and make full use of cloud services. Staff who understand cloud from the off will be able to make the right technology decisions, while minimizing security risks.

Migration doesn’t have to mean breaking the bank

Cloud migration can certainly be expensive, with the average enterprise’s annual spend on cloud services topping $28.91 million. Yet, while cloud overspend is certainly a concern -- 39 percent of enterprises have found it challenging to accurately predict and control their cloud costs -- it’s far from inevitable. Enterprises must recognize that migrating to the cloud and reducing IT spend are not mutually exclusive.

The cloud can offer several cost-saving benefits. These include the ability to switch spending from large, one-off capital expenditure (CapEx) to smaller, ongoing and largely more predictable operational expenditure (OpEx).

There’s also money to be saved by adopting a particular approach to cloud OpEx, known as 'FinOps'. Combining 'Finance' and 'DevOps', FinOps is a framework for managing OpEx across an organization, often adopted in conjunction with the cloud. 85 percent of organizations have implemented or plan to implement FinOps to manage OpEx across their organization and control costs. 

Under a FinOps approach, cloud costs aren’t assumed to be uncontrollable. Instead, collective, enterprise-wide responsibility is taken for keeping cloud costs low. Engineering, finance, business and technology teams all assume fiscal accountability for cloud services. This is exactly the sort of ‘all hands on deck’ policy that can stop cloud costs spiraling skyward. The cloud isn’t seen as an inevitable money drain, but its potential costs are noted and given enterprise-wide attention.  

Careful planning can kill two birds with one stone

Today, few businesses would dispute the benefits of cloud or its overall value-add, even if they may prefer some aspects of cloud services over others, or find migration challenging.

Less widely recognized is how cost-effective a well-planned cloud migration can be. By taking advantage of secure, scalable cloud offerings, with flexible deployment options that allow them to meet their price-performance needs, enterprises can kill two birds with one stone: reducing IT costs, while embracing the cloud’s business benefits.

Photo Credit: Stokkete/Shutterstock

Chris Harris is VP Global Field Engineering at Couchbase.