Cloud migrations to face closer scrutiny

Big public-cloud operators have often had to compete against each other — sometimes ferociously. Only rarely have they had to compete against alternative platforms for corporate IT, however. More often than not, chief information officers (CIOs) responsible for mission-critical IT have seen a move to the public cloud as low-risk, flexible, forward-looking and, ultimately, inexpensive. But these assumptions are now coming under pressure.

As the coming years threaten to be economically and politically turbulent, infrastructure and supply chains will be subject to disruption. Increasing government and stakeholder interest will force enterprises to scrutinize the financial and other risks of moving on-premises applications to the public cloud. More effort, and more investment, may be required to ensure that resiliency is both maintained and is clearly evident to its customers. While cloud has, in the past, been viewed as a low-risk option, the balance of uncertainty is changing — as are the cost equations.