Forrester

Why Read This Report

Forrsights surveys show that enterprises are turning to the cloud for speed and lower cost — but are the savings really there? The answer isn't always obvious; it might be that your internal costs are actually lower. This budgeting and planning report, written for CIOs considering an investment in cloud computing, will help you understand when and how the cloud will save you money. The answer depends on the characteristics of the workloads you deploy and how well you control the total costs in your own data center and with a potential provider. In this report, Forrester applies its Relative Cost of Operations methodology to show how costs can differ depending on usage patterns and the cloud options you select. The result: Pay-per-use cloud services will cost less for many workloads, but only if you use them in the right situations. However, cloud services vary in terms of their base security and resiliency features; even if they cost less to start, they might not be an acceptable replacement for on-site infrastructure. Finally, keep in mind that traditional hosting is not the same as cloud computing and won't save you nearly as much. Our cost model shows you why.