I've watched companies migrate everything to AWS or Azure, then get hit with bills 40% higher than their old data center costs. The cloud isn't magic, it's a different way of paying for computing.
The wins come from three things: eliminating overprovisioned hardware, paying only for what you use, and scaling on demand. But you have to architect for it. Lifting and shifting your old infrastructure to the cloud is like moving your filing cabinets to a warehouse and wondering why it's expensive.
The more cloud work I do, the clearer it is that successful cloud strategy is 20% technology and 80% changing how your organization thinks about resources. If you're planning a migration: Start small. Measure everything.
And for the love of uptime, set up billing alerts before you accidentally leave a test environment running over the weekend.
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