Enabling Iterative Cloud ROI Analysis with Automated IT Discovery

During the sales engagement between Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud provider and its customers, analysis on Return On Investment (ROI) in cloud is critical for developing a service solution and making financial investment commitments. However, cloud providers are often challenged in obtaining information about customers’ existing IT environments, so as to compare the cost of continuing the current IT environment with that incurred by migrating to a cloud environment. To address this challenge, we propose a methodology of using automated IT discovery tools, implemented as a service appliance, to collect data on customers’ premises in a non-intrusive fashion. Realizing that even with automated discovery, such information collection can only be conducted incrementally, we also develop an approach to conducting ROI analysis based on partial IT environment data, while iteratively refining the results with more complete data provided by the discovery tool.