The cloud is here – but managing its costs and optimizing benefits is up to you

A decade ago, early adapters enthusiastically embraced cloud computing, but the larger business world waited skeptically with questions such as ‘how safe is this?’ ‘How much will it cost?’ ‘Will it really improve productivity?’ ‘Will it give me a competitive edge?’ Today, there is still some hesitation around migrating to the cloud. Because the cloud is still considered fairly new technology, there hasn’t been an established trust in it yet. Some organisations maintain the “don’t fix what’s not broken” mentality, arguing that on-premise infrastructure has worked effectively. Others are generally uncomfortable with having major pieces of the business running in the cloud. And the potential security risks in transferring data between on-premise and public clouds concern nearly everyone.