The Price to Pay With Major Cloud Providers

This article is part of a series on the costs of cloud transformation.
→ by Dean McGrath

A startling revelation in the report Tangible Business Value from Cloud Transformation Remains Elusive has to do with the number of businesses who halted their cloud transformation. Various reasons are cited for this, each more relevant than the next, and only beg the question about whether it was a mistake to choose an industry giant as a cloud provider.

Despite the ripple of enthusiasm and significant initial investments in cloud migration, businesses are putting their transformation on hold due to several obstacles and nasty surprises.

According to the HFS report, this is primarily a matter of costs. A factor cited by 34% of organizations is high data movement expenses, such as egress fees in the case of hybrid deployments. Coming in just behind, unexpected high costs are a concern for 29% of organizations.

Let’s not forget to mention data locked into captive models or a proprietary platform, which is commonly known as vendor lock-in.

The sluggish pace of cloud transformations

Following the mass adoption of solutions from industry giants, also known as hyperscalers, less than one third of cloud projects today are delivered within budget and on schedule. You read that clearly—less than one third!

This is very much a wake-up call for the industry. People need to realize there is a wide gap between the ambitious cloud narrative and the reality faced by organizations as they pursue their business goals.

This discontent is having major implications. Nearly 95% of businesses report buyer’s remorse after having signed a contract with a hyperscaler.

As a growing number of organizations are moving away from hyperscalers, support services have become essential to assess or review the choices that have been made.

A forward-thinking cloud approach

We believe that cloud service providers and IT partners have a fundamental role to play with organizations starting their cloud journey. This transformation involves much more than booking storage space in a data centre and transferring workloads.

Success comes through understanding, collaboration and planning.

This is what we have been doing since the inception of the Cirrus sovereign cloud in 2014, and the results speak for themselves. Our satisfied customers, high retention rates and growing popularity demonstrate that we have successfully anticipated and preempted the challenges identified in the report. Our contracts are clear and our cloud costs predictable, with no nasty surprises.

Micro Logic favours a prospective approach with clients. Our teams work hard to understand their situation and develop optimal solutions. In this sense, we are more than just a manufacturer—we act as a strategic partner for businesses as they migrate to the cloud.

In the next article of this series, I will talk about the return on investment of moving to the cloud. Until then, I invite you to contact our experts for any matters you wish to discuss.

Dean McGrath
With nearly 30 years of experience in the IT industry, Dean McGrath has worked in various areas, including enterprise storage and servers, data protection, and cloud computing. As the Market Leader – Cloud Offering at Micro Logic, he now leverages his expertise to help organizations succeed in their digital transformation and transition to the cloud.