Depends on cost value of the specific context
Last post made some great comments about cons of cloud for pricing and article states cloud as convenient, but from my experience it's a little more complex in most cases.
I mean really the assumption here is ths is just a cost centre - which maybe we have the bean counters to partially thank for :) - but really "convenient" is, to whatever extent, the ability to change, move faster, take opportunities or (or reduce opportunity cost)... potentially do the right thing or actually reduce hardware costs.... I mean actually at some level just to compete with other companies with the same level of convenience... the old world really used to be about lead times as constraints for me....
Basically mainly it doesn't matter if your IT is half the price if your competitors are leveraging the cloud to do everything quicker.
Having said that, it's all about context and potential responsiveness is not the same as actually effectively changing rapidly... Nor does on premise mean lack of responsiveness with a highly performing infrastructure department.
Personally I've seen a lot of uncontrolled cloud spending and lack of actively managing those costs (or the complexities of systems that drive those costs). Imho it mostly comes down to how effectively / quickly you can and do change your systems for the most important things - be that new systems, scaling for load or reducing costs through optimisation, d commissioning or replatforming.
You may think this is bollocks but it's just what i believe from my experience... I'd probably agree with you on the specifics of your experience...
Yes, I'm a dev, don't hate me :)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
