- Situation. Cloud computing offers a compelling opportunity for small businesses to reduce IT costs. Cloud costs are orders of magnitude lower than the per unit costs of internally developed IT resources.
- Complication. Can the cloud be trusted? Are there hidden costs and pitfall areas that need to be considered?
- Solution. It's all about cost per unit of capacity plus risk management. Evaluate the capacity and risk requirements of candidate workloads as well as cloud providers to find a match that will save the enterprise money.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Low-cost barrier to entry and rapid deployment of cloud solutions provides proof on concept without breaking the bank. However, low-cost entry does not mean lower overall cost.
- For small enterprises, the cloud (like other disruptive technology) is about risk management and risk tolerance. Small enterprises tend to have little to spend and less to lose than larger enterprises.
Impact and Result
Info-Tech's three rules of cloud investment provide a framework for asking the right questions about the enterprise's tolerance for the main risk factors of the cloud and its ability to mitigate that risk.