How are enterprises using cloud today?

Cloud computing has matured from renting servers into an ecosystem supporting infrastructure changes and AI initiatives. Most enterprise cloud efforts fit a few categories, and outcomes depend on understanding each project’s nature, risks, costs, and lessons. Cloud migrations move workloads from data centers to public, private, or hybrid environments using rehosting, replatforming, or refactoring. Common goals include cost reduction, scalability, and avoiding hardware refresh cycles. Risks include underestimated dependencies that cause performance issues or integration failures, plus data egress fees and operational costs that erase savings. Migration budgets often exceed by 20% to 50% due to discovery gaps and testing, while ongoing waste can reach 25% to 35% from idle resources. Total cost of ownership modeling must include people, training, and change management, and lift-and-shift alone rarely achieves promised ROI.

"Having advised enterprises on thousands of cloud projects over the years, I have seen that most projects fall into a handful of categories. I can say with certainty that success depends less on hype and more on understanding each project's nature, risks, costs, and lessons."

"Enterprises continue to migrate existing workloads from data centers to public, private, or hybrid environments. This can involve rehosting (lift and shift), replatforming with minor changes, or full refactoring into cloud-native architectures. The goal is usually cost reduction, scalability, or the end of hardware refresh cycles. The risks here are well documented. Many projects underestimate dependencies, leading to performance surprises or integration failures. Data egress fees and unexpected operational costs can wipe out projected savings."

"Initial migrations often run 20% to 50% over budget due to discovery gaps and testing. Ongoing expenses can decline through rightsizing and reserved instances, but poor management often leads to 25% to 35% waste from idle resources. These lessons underscore the importance of modeling the total cost of ownership up front, including people, training, and change management."

"What we've learned: Pure lift-and-shift rarely delivers the promised ROI. Organizations that succeed treat migration as an opportunity for modernization rather than a simple move. Phased approaches with strong governance and finops practices minimize overruns, which have historically plagued most efforts."

Read at InfoWorld