The invisible cost of cloud computing cannot be ignored

Every business has to go through a period of reckoning, so every conceivable cost needs to be a factor in the predictive model. Hidden expenditure, as an unpredictable accident, really makes countless people burn.

Cloud computing services providers should make the cost of cloud computing more explicit if they are more authentic. If the service provider does not, this will be an additional test for CIOs and other IT professionals, who should know that each user's 100 dollars per year is just the beginning of the budget.

Costs associated with people, processes, and architectures are equally important considerations when large-scale technology transformations and the management of a new system are in place. The secret is how much of this cost is added to the unfamiliar cloud computing landscape.

To help uncover the hidden costs of cloud computing, answer the following four key questions:

1. What are the feasible routes for migrating old-style applications to (or replacing) cloud computing?

2. What architecture changes are needed to integrate cloud computing and non-cloud applications?

3. How can we change our technology and operational processes to take advantage of different sourcing, configuration and management patterns?

4. Does a dedicated cloud computing (cloud computing used exclusively for a single enterprise) provide more flexibility than the current hosted or public cloud computing model? What is the cost of this?

The answers to these questions will change the idea of using cloud based applications to manage complex systems. This will help to uncover the real costs of such a shift.

When the focus of the conversation shifts to the system, it produces other questions that make this situation clearer:

1. How do we ensure that all customers in Salesforce.com are synchronized with our customer management applications, our billing applications, and our 6 product systems?

2. Should we add client application logic to Salesforce.com to validate customer and company information against our master list? Or should we do it externally and integrate the resulting systems and processes?

3. For IT personnel who support our customer systems, should we consider what types of skills they have or consider other institutions?

Many organizations in various industries are studying factors other than the cost of using cloud computing to understand the full cost of migrating, implementing, integrating, training, and redesigning the people and technology support people, processes, and architectures around them.

In fact, the three examples of companies we are working with show how different details lead to the same conclusion: the uncertainty of cloud computing's hidden costs:

A managed IT service vendor is interested in moving some of its help desk applications into cloud computing for its customers. But the company is not in a hurry to do this before it is monitored through the market.

An industrial product company is evaluating new technologies and methodologies. But the company will also take careful steps to see what the results of the assessment are.

A small and fast-moving financial services firm has so far not been convinced that any cloud computing service provider can provide them with the processing power required by service-level agreements and security requirements. This processing power is necessary for the return on investment.

In these three examples, the potential hidden costs of cloud computing are hampered by the decision making process.

As a result, when cloud service providers are gushing about their services, CIOs and their IT departments need to get out of the way and clearly understand the entire cost bottom line.

Remember: If you don't have protection, you can easily get burned on a cloudy day.