There is no longer any question that the cloud computing model will be the prevailing style of delivery for computing over the coming decades; Forrester Research predicts that the global market for cloud computing will grow from $40.7 billion in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020. Greenfield application development projects can be designed from the outset to benefit from cloud computing features such as elastic scalability, automated provisioning, infrastructure level APIs, object storage services and middleware services such as message queues and key/value stores. However, for existing legacy applications the journey to cloud is not quite so straightforward.
Understanding the impact of factors such as security/compliance, application architecture, integration, the pattern of demand and operational maturity is crucial when performing a cloud feasibility assessment. Additionally, many organizations perceive cost-reduction as one of the primary benefits of adopting a cloud hosting model. In practice however, this is not always an accurate assumption. There are nuances to the financial analysis: public cloud computing is not necessarily cheaper than traditional dedicated hosting. Furthermore, there are considerations around the impact on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), transformation/migration costs and the position of an organization with the IT life cycle.

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