Cloud computing, in the simplest way possible, is a service that provides IT resources through the internet. These resources include servers, storage and databases along with networking, software, analytics, and intelligence. Thus instead of owning, maintaining and managing huge IT infrastructure, all you need to do is get a cloud service provider, pay for the services you need and get your work done!
It’s simple, reliable . That’s the reason the demand for cloud computing is continuously increasing in every sector. Industry research claims that cloud managed services for IT will increase by more than 50% over the next five years.
Why cloud computing?
Gone are the days when companies had to buy super expensive, huge servers that took months to get delivered and required a special department and an installation team. From the cost to its installation and maintenance, owning this kind of IT infrastructure was time consuming, complicated and something companies eagerly wanted to avoid. And thus, cloud computing comes to the rescue! Cloud computing provides quicker innovations with flexible resources all in a budget. It helps you reduce your operating costs while increasing efficiency of infrastructure and easy availability of resources according to the growth and needs of your business.
The top reasons to choose cloud computing :
- Cost : You already know that cloud computing is a cheaper option than the traditional way of owning IT resources. But how much cheaper? Clay Magouyrk, SVP of Engineering, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, notes that their clients are saving 30-50% of overall average costs with their cloud services as compared to infrastructure on premises or with other cloud service providers. According to Insight UK, 80% of businesses report saving 20% of average costs with more productivity and better security, by shifting to the cloud.
- Speed : According to a survey, in a large company having more than 1000 employees, 76% leaders are convinced that they use cloud computing to improve the speed of IT service delivery. Automatic upgrades, faster product development and deployment, automatic scaling and load-balancing and uptime guarantees by cloud providers are main factors that contribute to faster productivity.
- Global scale : Cloud computing makes it possible for businesses to expand to new geographic regions and deploy globally in a matter of minutes. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a global provider who can deploy your applications to any or as many locations as you need.
- Productivity : With cloud computing many complex and time consuming tasks become easy, thereby increasing productivity. Companies can focus on more important tasks while the cloud provider takes care of their IT resources. Also, cloud computing is essential for the work from home approach which is adopted by many companies, thereby again increasing productivity.
- Security : Cloud Providers take serious measures for security so you don’t have to, with proactive threat management and data security, cloud computing provides security like never before. Almost every cloud service provider offers policies, technologies and controls that can protect your data, apps and infrastructure from potential threats.
- Flexibility : For a growing business it can be pretty difficult to continuously meet the increasing needs of the business. But cloud computing makes it as simple as possible. All you have to do is contact your provider and scale up the services provided. Similarly, you can also scale down the services if you don’t need them. Flexibility at its best, isn’t it?
- Disaster recovery : Disaster recovery is vital for any business and while huge businesses invest a lump sum amount of money for disaster recovery, cloud is the best option for small businesses. It’s cheaper and available in a variety of formats that are less time consuming and often accompanied with a third-party expertise.
- Hustle free updates : Cloud computing provides the easiest solution for software and hardware updates. Your provider takes full responsibility for all the updates and upgrades available with zero involvement from your side. Thus you can focus on better things – like growing your business!
- Workstations on cloud : On premise work environment is soon becoming a talk of the past. Remote working is the new normal. A person can work from their home or from the top of the mountain, but this can be impossible without cloud computing.
- Better collaborations : Cloud computing makes it possible for a number of people to work together even from different corners of the world. Isn’t this the future we were talking about 10 years ago? Cloud based workflow and file sharing apps allow team members to follow updates and collaborations. This increases productivity, creativity and promotes a better work environment.
How to make the shift?
The FOMO about not shifting on the cloud can be real for any company. But more importantly, some elements of cloud computing are becoming the basic essential of businesses. So how do we make the move from the traditional working technique to the cloud? Well, you get a cloud service provider. There are a number of providers available, all you have to do is choose the right one according to your preferences. Just make sure you go with a reliable, trustworthy, innovative and smart one!
Conclusion
With technology changing everyday, the cloud is here to stay. Gartner expects that significant amounts of spending and computing will aggregate around cloud service providers very soon. While IDC predicts that cloud adoption and opportunities expand to a $1 trillion market in 2024, even more growth can be expected. Thus, adopting cloud computing for your business is inevitable, so start looking for a provider soon!