What is the real cost behind cloud computing?

Some IT executives who have implemented cloud services or are considering implementing cloud services are reminding that migrating to cloud computing means increasing costs, some of which may be unexpected.

Migrate and http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/17326.html > Storage data to be paid

Migrating large amounts of data to the public cloud and storing it for a long time will cost a lot of money every year, and many units are not aware of these costs. The Whitepage company, headquartered in Seattle, provides online contact information for more than 200 million people and 15 million companies, and a one-time data migration costs thousands of dollars. Among them, the cost of network bandwidth accounted for the majority of data migration costs, cloud service providers to collect upload and download fees, even if the data and systems in the off-site hosting also has internal human costs.

Another big cost of cloud services is the amount of data that is spent on long-term storage in the cloud. If you consider the data growth rate for the next 3 years, you will find that the cost of the data lifecycle is high. The data is stored in the cloud, and the corresponding cost is paid each month. By fully considering processor, capacity, and storage requirements, and charting with graphs, it is clear what the costs are and whether it will be more cost-effective for the IT department to do it itself. In general, the use of public cloud computing to meet the needs outside of storage can make it unnecessary for users to deploy and maintain applications internally. So the cost savings are far greater than any unexpected cost.

Hidden costs in System integration

Cloud computing has hidden costs in terms of integration. If you don't realize it at first, the benefits to cloud computing will be compromised. Recently, the california-based Pacific Coast Construction Products company is planning to use cloud computing on a large scale, and they have evaluated the services of several providers. The company's CIO says the company, which provides products and services to the construction industry, has so far limited the scope of its applications because it is not entirely economically meaningful. There are 2 reasons why it is difficult to integrate software from different developers in the cloud. The second is that if the Pacific Coast company tries to integrate itself, it will increase costs. But without integration, users will not be able to get some of these features, and the larger, more complex applications like ERP have problems with integration. So cloud computing has hidden costs in terms of integration. If you don't realize that at first, the economic benefits of cloud computing may be less satisfying.

Testing software requires human and financial resources

Test the software before migrating it to the cloud, which can also bring unforeseen costs. The CIO of Notre Dame, New York State Poughkeepsie, said: "We tested and debugged an application that did not run in the cloud before encountering some costs that had not been anticipated." Notre Dame used a server that was not approved by the software developer to migrate a large set of ERP systems to a private cloud. To ensure the stable operation of the ERP system, the additional cost is to find out what version of the operating system and database can be used normally. It's actually a bit of a modification to some code, and we spend a lot of time and effort on which lines of code to change, because some apps may not have the conditions to take full advantage of cloud computing, which will eventually drive up the cost of cloud computing. ”

Rent and utilities are not limited

Cloud services bring spending beyond the technical equipment budget, but it departments that are accustomed to hosting the system at the outset do not notice these costs. "There is a lot of cost in the internal hosting system, but not all of the costs are from the IT budget, such as electricity and rent," The CIO, the USDA's Food and Nutrition service, said. But if you use cloud services, these basic infrastructure costs will be counted into the total cost. So we now have to pay for the costs that were not counted in the IT budget before. In general, cloud services are easy to manage and help governments reduce total costs, but cloud services are not the same as the computing patterns that they encountered before. This is not the problem of cloud service costs that are higher than internal hosting. "This can be seen as a cash flow problem," he explains. If a monthly fee is to be paid, these costs will have to be met when the costs are incurred. The more traditional model is to pay for the purchase of hardware and related services in one lump sum. The cost of the new model may be cheaper, but the budgeting process needs to be changed. "(Chen Hang)

"Micro-Bow Yun costing"

Wind (Agency): The cloud service provider collects upload and download fees, even though the data and systems have internal human costs in off-site hosting. And the long-term storage of data in the cloud can bring costs.

Zhwechao (supplier): Test the software before migrating it to the cloud, which can also bring unforeseen costs. Because some applications may not yet have the conditions to take full advantage of cloud computing capabilities.

Bruce (Purchasing unit): cloud services will bring spending beyond the technical equipment budget, while IT departments that are accustomed to hosting the system in the first place do not notice the increase in these costs.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)