Conversion to the Cloud: The ROI of Going Virtual

More and more business solutions and tools are becoming available online, including quite a few that could be integral to running a company. However, if any solution crosses over to make it to the executives table, the ultimate question remains – whether it makes the numbers turn? Technologies change all the time and successful organizations today are shifting over to the cloud not just because no one wants to miss the train to the post-PC era, but also because it offers benefits such as ability to scale, higher availability, lower cost, etc. But how do you quantify these benefits and make business sense out of the decision? I’ll walk you through 3 different case comparisons and help you understand the base assumptions around moving your business to the cloud. The IT department of any organization today is faced with the dilemma of picking a solution with the least cost but highest benefits. When it comes to adoption of the cloud, every company faces a three-way road: •Business-As-Usual - This assumes that you continue to run your business as is and do nothing •Do-It-Yourself - This assumes all the costs of establishing your own cloud or what we call Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (“VDI”) •Hosted Virtual Desktop - assumes you let a provider take you out of the desktop management business Traditionally, the cost of a PC has been considered the price at acquisition only. The actual cost of the PC is reached by adding up all the associated latent costs that are often overlooked at acquisition – software installations, version upgrades, IT support costs, power consumed, anti-virus etc. are only few of the broad category of costs that are often unnoticed. Gartner highlights that the cost to manage a desktop for the average enterprise is $142/month. VDI can be very complicated (technology expertise may not be in-house), resource draining (need a large IT staff and may distract them from day-to-day IT management) and expensive (massive Cap Ex investment upfront to provision the infrastructure to run virtual desktops). By applying business sense and a Total Cost of Ownership equation you can determine if going virtual is right for your business.

- by Saad Shahzad