Free Service Calculates Cloud Computing Cost

Cloud computing gets a lot of buzz, yet still faces resistance from data center traditionalists. A new free service claims to specify the cost savings from moving to the cloud.

Cloud computing is a topic getting a lot of play in IT circles thanks to the success of companies like Amazon, Salesforce and Google, and with venerable IT firms like IBM and Microsoft jumping on the bandwagon.

But for all the customer wins these players can legitimately claim, the traditional data center model of IT infrastructure managed on company premises still has plenty of loyalists, thanks in part to security concerns and other issues such as developing an effective migration plan.

Astadia, a cloud computing system integrator, thinks it can take a lot of the pain out that enterprise shops might fear is involved with a move to the cloud. Thursday, Astadia launched its IT Cloud Transformation (ITX) ROI Calculator, a free service the company said helps assess current infrastructure resources and savings to be realized by moving to the cloud.

“We put some investment into taking what we’ve learned from years of working with on-premise and cloud computing systems to develop a set of metrics users can adjust a bit to reflect their particular situation,” Astadia CTO Mike Lingo told InternetNews.com.

The ITX ROI Calculator compares a company’s current expenses on infrastructure to what cloud services, using Saleseforce’s platform, would cost. “Generally speaking, the Salesforce platform is the most mature, so that’s what we use for the calculator but you can expect similar savings from other cloud providers,” he said.

Read the rest at ServerWatch.