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Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
Turning CapEx into OpEx keeps getting thrown around by the cloud sales teams as some kind of kool aid but cloud is not necessarily cheaper in its current state even though some accounting practices might prefer this.
It's basically the subscription model of where everything is going these days. I have heard plenty of stories from vendors and majors in town who went cloud and then turned back around because the cost is so easy to spiral. They make it extremely easy to commit and add to your monthly bill but don't make any of the billing transparent.
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I'll lead with a YMMV.
Capex v opex isn't a cost argument; it is an accounting treatment argument. The idea is that instead of buying servers and related gear which is obviously scored as capital to get the depreciation, cloud is scored as a pay as you go model, which for most organizations, is operating and usage is scored by transactions and data ingress/egress. Some organizations need the depreciation offered by hardware acquisition, some do not. Some want to tie computing costs to operating costs of the business, others do not. it is an accounting treatment discussion, and not a "cost of cloud" argument.
I don't know about billing not being transparent though; I find the detail to be too much sometimes!
When I did the ROI, I definitely focused on not just using someone else's hardware. I'm finding that the older applications/databases are the hardest to move beyond the "well, it was cheaper on premise" argument. VMware applications are the hardest because it is already a virtual environment, and running on another virtual environment may not make a lot of sense.
But definitely a YMMV thing that requires IT and accounting/financial acumen.