TCO Tool Compares Cloud Versus In-house Development Costs

The potential for increased agility and speedier deployment is what should drive an initiative to shift software development into the cloud, rather than strictly basing a decision on cost savings, according to Info-Tech Research Group. But, cost is a huge factor in this decision. Improvements to agility and deployment won’t mean quite as much if the expense of the move (or projected expense increases) outweighs them.

While the initial financial outlay of switching to a Platform-as-a-Service solution may be small in comparison to continuing to develop on-site, the overall costs of cloud services may increase over time until they reach on-site levels. Info-Tech developed the PaaS TCO Comparison Tool to calculate and compare the cost of cloud-based PaaS solutions to in-house development costs. This tool factors in hardware, software licensing, facilities and cloud services costs to get a clear financial picture projected over several years.

To help figure out if your software applications can be successfully developed in the cloud, use the PaaS Appropriateness Assessment Tool. This reusable spreadsheet tool helps you determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether an application is suitable for cloud-based development. Use information from both the assessment tool and the comparison tool to create a detailed PaaS business plan to present to stakeholders and management.