Data Center Relocation Cost Estimate
Cloud technology has taken the business world by storm. It is lauded as one of the best inventions since the launch of the internet. The way data is stored and processed at an optimal level has been redefined by cloud servers. The technology offers incredible scalability, ease of access and security to enterprise applications and database of small and large companies. Conventionally, on-site servers had become a standard practice to create, operate and maintain an organization’s IT infrastructure. However, cloud technology has swiftly overtaken the norm and has become the preferred method of storing and processing enterprise database and applications. Our tips for data center relocation estimate calculator will help you to figure out the accurate estimate of cost for moving your business apps and data to cloud servers.
81% of Companies Have Multi-Cloud Strategies
The public cloud industry is truly massive. According to several reports, the cloud computing industry was just US$ 24.65 billion in 2010 and ten years later, the industry is set to cross the US 150 billion mark with ease. Globally, around 81% of companies have a multi-cloud strategy already in place and by the end of 2020, around 67% of enterprise-level IT infrastructure will be on cloud platforms. This will result in the cloud technology handling over 82% of the total enterprise workload. It is estimated that an astonishing 40 Zettabytes of data will be handled by cloud servers and networks by the end of 2020.
Business owners are always looking for solutions, like cloud technology, that can make their operations more efficient and easier. However, despite its increasing popularity there are still several thousand enterprises that are yet to adopt the innovative computing and storage technology. One of the main reasons that is still keeping several industries from adopting cloud technology is the suspected high cost of moving the existing enterprise applications and databases to the cloud servers. However, business owners need to know that overall, the cost of moving to cloud and using it as your database and processing platform is significantly low as compared to using on-site IT infrastructure.
Points to Consider when Finding Data Center Relocation Estimate
If you are hesitant to make the move to cloud platform because of suspected high cost, here are the simple ways you can figure out the precise data center relocation estimate for your business.
It is important to note that there are numerous small and large IT services and products that any business enterprise uses at a given time. The various products and services rack up a significant expense when accumulated. Hence, you need to carefully consider every aspect of expense that can be related to moving your enterprise database and applications to cloud platform.
We have classified the different expenses into several categories for your convenience:
Pre-Migration Costs
You need to have maximum details about the existing cost of maintaining and running your business application on in-house IT systems as well as information from system performance data. This helps to decide the right-sized IT architecture you will need on the cloud platform and also show how cost-effective will be your business operations on the cloud server as compared to the existing on-site IT infrastructure. Some of the factors that determine pre-migration costs are:
- On Site Data Center costs – Includes cost of maintaining and upgrading servers, power / utility bills, storage, IT labor, network, etc.
- Hardware – Includes hardware specification, maintenance, upgrading, etc.
- Software – Includes cost of licensing, support, purchase dates, contracts, warranties, etc.
- Operations – Labor costs, network connections, system performance data, etc.
Post Migration Costs
Post-migration costs are expenses that are likely to be incurred when running business applications on cloud platform, such as:
- Monitoring
- Alerting
- Monthly / annual licensing and support service
- Administrations
- Operations
- System maintenance and operation
- Maintenance
- System updates
- Software version patches and updates
- Training
Migration Costs
The actual process of migration of database and applications requires several different expenses, such as:
- Application migration cost which is the actual cost of moving applications from existing environment to cloud servers.
- Configuration and infrastructural changes that are required to make applications compatible to run on cloud servers.
- Integrating and testing migrated apps to ensure that they run smoothly on the new cloud environment.
Bottom Line
Once you have the details of the overall cost of maintaining and operating your business applications and databases on current on-site data banks and on cloud servers, you can get an even more accurate data center relocation cost estimate using the Cost Calculator provided on the website of leading cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc.