Selling the Cloud to Smaller Business Organisations

We examine the problems faced by an IT Sector SME in planning the migration of existing Web Applications to the Cloud. Potential performance evaluation proved sufficiently complex, costly and imprecise as to result in postponement or cancellation of the migration, and plans for a more attractive alternative. We argue that traditional benchmarking techniques, even those being developed for cloud use, cannot provide potential cloud users with the information required for sound business planning. We propose a system of vendor performance agreements based upon the automated characterisation of customer applications.