Cloud & Infrastructure · Cloud Strategy · Medium · 25-35 min

On-Prem to Cloud — Is the Migration Worth It?

Last updated 2026-07-29

What is this case about?

A mid-size enterprise runs ~400 applications across two aging on-prem data centers. Annual run cost is about $42M (hardware refresh, facilities, licenses, ops staff). The CIO wants to migrate to public cloud over three years and has promised the board a 30% cost reduction. The CFO is skeptical — peers who migrated saw bills go up, not down. You are asked whether the 30% is real and how to get there.

Where strong candidates start

  • Separate the cost question from the value question — is this a pure cost play, an agility/speed play, or a forced refresh
  • Build the TCO bridge — current on-prem run vs projected cloud run including egress, managed services, and the migration program cost itself

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