Each time I think I have my cloud computing survey list set, another is released. The latest is from Enterprise Management Associates, in a report entitled The Responsible Cloud. The report price is outside of my price range, but Data Center Knowledge provides a good summary.
The survey sample:
“Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) interviewed 159 enterprises with active, or immediately planned cloud deployments, and reports that 75 percent said private cloud is the preferred model. Fifty two percent are implementing both on-premises and off-premises clouds…”
The key findings, according to Data Center Knowledge:
“Of the enterprises already running cloud computing, lowered IT capital costs (hardware, facilities, licenses, etc.) was cited by 61% of respondents. One quarter of all respondents reported that they had reduced both capital expenditure and operational expenditures such as staff, power, rent and maintenance costs.”
“Other benefits include freeing up strategic resources (49%), enabling disaster recovery/business continuity planning (46%), and increased flexibility and agility (46%). Overall, 89% of customers reported multiple outcomes, with just under half of all enterprises (46%) reporting five or more significant outcomes.
The report also found that the single most common level of OpEx reduction (from a sample of 79 respondents) was in the range of 21-30 percent. However, across all these respondents, cloud computing returned an average 22 percent OpEx saving.
Of the 76% of cloud customers that also reported real, measurable cost savings, the single most common level of CapEx reduction was between 11-20%. The CapEx return across all these respondents was 26%.”
Given the mix of public and private cloud and early adoption stage, it’s not surprising the CapEx reduction is in the 11-20% range. As more use cases (workloads) shift to a cloud computing environment, you’d expect the CapEx reduction to increase. Those CapEx reductions will further increase as use cases shift to a public cloud. However, some of those savings will be offset by OpEx increases, as pay-as-you-go is a new OpEx item, and in-house personnel are still required to manage cloud computing deployments and business service levels.
Suffice to say, ROI calculators will become an important tool for cloud computing adopters and prospects.
