Is the cloud overhyped? Predicted savings hard to verify
October 8, 2012
Grazed from Federal Times. Author: Nichole Blake Johnson.
One of the most attractive benefits of cloud computing can also be one of the hardest to prove: cost savings. Agencies often lack the details needed to compare their pre-cloud costs — for hardware, software, labor and the like — with cloud-computing fees.
“It’s kind of a shaky premise to say we are moving to the cloud and going to save all this money, and they [organizations] don’t have a sense of what they’re spending today and how much they will save,” said Ed Anderson, a research director at Gartner whose focus is the cloud computing market. “I see a big danger in that because cost savings is the No. 1 justification for moving to cloud.”…
The General Services Administration, Agriculture Department, U.S. Agency for International Development and others have projected millions of dollars in annual savings by moving to the cloud. While proponents and skeptics of cloud computing agree that savings are likely, how much is uncertain…
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