✓ Backup and archive costs:  The actual savings on backup costs depends on what the backup strategy is when the application moves into the cloud. The same is true of archiving. First, you have to understand who’s doing the backup and archiving. Is backup the responsibility of the IT organization or is it handled by the service provider? Will all backup be done in the cloud? If so, do you have a contingency plan if that cloud service is unavailable when you need that backup? Will your organization still be required to back up a percentage of critical data locally? 

✓ Disaster recovery costs:  In theory, the cloud service has its own disaster recovery capabilities, so there may be a consequential savings on disaster recovery. However, you need to clearly understand what your cloud provider’s disaster recovery capability is. For example, does the cloud service provider have mirrored sites in case of a power outage at one data center location? IT management must determine the level of support the cloud provider will offer. This can be an added cost from the provider, or you may seek out a secondary vendor to handle disaster recovery and procedures. 

✓ Data center infrastructure costs:  A whole series of costs — including electricity, floor space, cooling, and building maintenance — are an integral part of managing any data center. Because of the large investment in data centers, moving workloads to a public cloud may not be financially viable if you’re only utilizing as little as 40 percent of the data center’s compute power. (Of course, you can deploy a private cloud to take advantage of the underutilized space and the advantages of the cloud.) 

✓ Software maintenance costs:  What’s the annual maintenance cost for the software you may move to a cloud-based service? The answer can be complicated if the software license is part of a bundle or if the application is integrated with other applications. In addition, there’s the cost of purchasing the software. Is the organization taking advantage of a “pay-as-you go” licensing model that allows the user to pay only for what’s used? 

✓ Platform costs:  Some applications run only on specific operating environments — Windows, Linux, HP-UX, IBM z/OS, AIX, and so on. The annual maintenance costs 

