You hear it again and again. It’s talked about on every corner and you can read about it everywhere: the advantages of the cloud! Many companies have not only realised the obvious advantages of the cloud, but have already claimed them for themselves. By moving to the cloud, you can concentrate on application innovations. And without having to constantly keep the infrastructure in mind: minimising complexity and maintaining the infrastructure has rarely been easier. A variety of IT tasks such as patching, networking and server management can also be carried out during the cloud transformation.
Cloud technology has now penetrated so far into our collective lives that more and more companies are joining in. More and more are deciding to outsource their core business applications to the cloud. We are at a point where the question has evolved from “why cloud” to “which cloud provider”. The reason seems obvious… As with most business decisions, ROI (return on investment) plays a crucial part.
Forrester study on the Azure Cloud
Microsoft commissioned the American consulting firm Forrester to conduct a study in order to gain a better understanding of this change. The aim was to analyse the potential return on investment (ROI) of companies. The results of the “Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) Study” were only taken into account if application development and deployment were moved to the Azure Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
It is precisely this ROI that reflects the advantages of those customers who have switched from Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). For those migrating from on-premises to the cloud, the ROI can be even higher.
Azure study with PaaS changers
Eight customers were interviewed in order to better understand the benefits, costs and risks of cloud implementation. All of them have years of experience with Azure IaaS and have recently switched to Azure PaaS.
Thanks to Azure Platform as a Service, they can now rationalise and automate processes outside of the most important functions and business areas. At the same time, they have been able to achieve their cost control and revenue growth targets with ease. In addition, thanks to the simplification of development and administrative processes, Paas customers have also been more efficient in their operations. All stated that they had created and updated more applications as a result.
Based on the composite results, Forrester created a representative organisation. The aim was to be able to provide more precise and detailed analyses. Forrester modelled a medium-sized company with 100 applications supported by Azure PaaS (and growing every year).
Main result: improved time-to-market and reduced management time
Based on interviews and subsequent financial analysis, Forresters was able to truly establish and prove the risk-adjusted ROI and the resulting benefits.
A five-year analysis of the representative company assumes an ROI of 466%. The net present value (NPV) was also calculated and estimated; experts speak of more than $5.9 million. Major, significant improvements provided by Azure PaaS include an 80% reduction in IT management time. This time is essential for the management of apps deployed on the platform.
Find out all the benefits of Azure adoption in the full Forrester report.
