Issue link: https://resources.awscloud.com/i/1496553
©2020 IDC #US46773920 6 Benefits of Cloud Transformation Moving workloads to AWS, which AWS calls "modernization," and embracing new workloads on AWS offer significant business benefits: ▪ IDC research has shown that moving workloads to the cloud produces substantial cost savings in terms of hardware and software. ▪ In a recent research project conducted for AWS, IDC interviewed seven AWS customers that collectively reported a 264% three-year ROI and 39% lower three-year cost of operations as a result of moving database deployments to RDS. ▪ Moving workloads to the cloud frees valuable staff from routine operational tasks, increasing developer and DBA productivity and allowing them to perform more high-value jobs for the enterprise. ▪ Development costs are greatly reduced because development teams can spin up and shut down test instances at will, paying for only what they use. ▪ New functionality in areas such AI/ML, streaming data, edge data management, and data science, which would have been cost prohibitive on premises, yields improved efficiency and greater business opportunity for the enterprise overall. FUTURE OUTLOOK In the past, enterprises were bogged down with complex data integration solutions that limited their options for new uses of data and new types of data. This has to change. Workloads based on AI/ML, streaming data (including data from the Internet of things [IoT]), time series analysis, and other kinds of data and analysis must be integrated and managed together. These technologies are made necessary to address new business opportunities in such areas as supply chain optimization, a better overall customer experience powered by artificial intelligence, dynamic pricing, and logistics optimization. AWS has a jump on this, offering support in all these areas. Clearly, a unified cloud platform environment is best for fully embracing this new integrated future. CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES In moving established IT users to this new environment, AWS faces several significant challenges. For one thing, AWS may offer customers too many choices without enough guidance. This is largely a messaging challenge, but it must be addressed. For another, many enterprises use packaged applications, and those applications may not be fully or, in some cases, even partially compatible with the AWS database offerings. If those applications are also not cloud native, moving them would not be a good option in any event. There is an opportunity here for AWS, however. Although AWS already has an active partnership program, work needs to continue in forming partnerships with cloud conversion services and with application vendors, helping them refactor their applications to operate as cloud-native and, indeed, AWS-native applications that can support AWS database systems. AWS already offers services directly and through partners that help application developers build for the AWS platform, so this should not be difficult.