In today’s fast-paced business world, there is a driving force to continue to develop faster, more robust technologies. This demand for ongoing innovation creates great strains on the limited resources of today’s IT departments.
Test and development projects are often put on the back burner because of the large capital investments that must be made to build an infrastructure to host the development environment and having the IT staff available to focus on it.
Cloud computing has become a lifesaver of sorts for test and development projects for many reasons. As mentioned above, cost is a big challenge for test and development, but the cloud helps organizations overcome this obstacle.
By hosting a test and development project in the cloud through an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) approach, developers can rely on the infrastructure of the hosting provider and not have to invest in the hardware, software and networking products and services that often come with a heavy price tag for internal IT departments when developing or modifying applications.
When it comes time to test the application, multiple environments typically need to be configured to perform various tests. This this can also be done through the IaaS model, enabling organizations to quickly, easily and cost-efficiently leverage additional environments without outlaying the significant capital that would be required if done in-house.
Cost savings can also be found in the payment structure. The IaaS model is typically offered on a pay-as-you-go basis. Organizations only pay for what they use. Therefore, as one test and development project ends, the service can be turned off and payments end. Unlike in-house environments where the infrastructure might go unused until the next project is started.
Furthermore, by relying on the infrastructure of the hosting provider, an organization eliminates any of the maintenance costs associated with the equipment, including not only the cost of hardware and software upgrades, but also the time required for their IT staff to perform the necessary upgrades and maintenance.
According to IDC, leveraging a cloud-based environment for test and development can save an organization 30-40% of total expenditures in the long run. This is a significant cost savings for any organization.
Stay tuned. In the next few blog posts, we will discuss additional reasons why more organizations are moving their test and development environment to the cloud.