Large business shys away from cloud computing

A new study from consulting firm McKinsey has shown that introducing cloud computing initiatives doesn’t make sense for larger companies.

The “Clearing the air on cloud computing” report finds that moving to a cloud computing model for a large company would double the costs of IT operations.

“Clouds already make sense for many small and medium-size businesses, but technical, operational and financial hurdles will need to be overcome before clouds will be used extensively by large public and private enterprises,” the report states.

“Rather than create unrealisable expectations for ‘internal clouds’, CIOs should focus now on the immediate benefits of virtualising server storage, network operations, and other critical building blocks.”

The company uses Amazon.com’s operation as an example, estimating the total cost of its data centre functions would be $US366 a month in the cloud compared to $US150 a month for a normal in-house data centre.

The report suggests companies looking to save money on IT operations should look to desktop virtualisation.