Is Cloud Computing for you?
Cloud computing is currently one of the hottest topics among the tech community today. Computing in the ‘Cloud’ evokes images of applications floating above in some viscous cloud, reliably levitating availability whenever needed. The term perfectly describes what cloud computing actually is – a way to increase capacity and add capability at will without investing in new infrastructure, on-going fees, and the maintenance of a dedicated IT staff.
Cloud computing incorporates any subscription-based service that, in real time over the Internet rather than on-premise, extends the existing IT staff’s bandwidth and effectiveness. But is Cloud computing truly right for your business? Before deciding, take a look at these benefits:
- Down Time and/or Outages Eliminated. When a server is hosted on-site, the likelihood that it will be periodically down is quite high, if not inevitable. Specifically for small to mid-sized organizations any unscheduled down time is a serious threat to the critical business relationships. Moving to the cloud increases reliability and availability by eradicating unanticipated outages. With a solution in the Cloud, corporate data is secure, safe, and always available so businesses can reliably and promptly keep their client commitments.
- IT Staffing, Training and Maintenance Eliminated or Reduced. Specifically for the smaller company, investing in the resources necessary to support the IT infrastructure can be an enormous hit to the overall bottom line. Small to mid-sized organizations need to keep lean wherever possible, and supporting a dedicated IT department detracts significantly from that strategy. Moving software deployment, integration, maintenance, and security duties to the cloud provide the small and mid-sized business a more effective and efficient way to manage their IT infrastructure.
- Faster Enterprise Application Upgrades. If a server is hosted internally, planned maintenance needs to be routinely scheduled for software upgrades, patches, and fixes to keep performance optimal. Instead of installing software onto each individual computer, employees would log onto a web-based hosting service to access all the programs required for his or her job. Employees’ computers no longer house everything required to run applications; instead, the network that comprises the cloud does all the heavy lifting. In the Cloud, if an employee’s computer crashes locally, the impact is nominal compared to cataclysmal.
- Fast Deployment. Cloud computing expedites and simplifies software deployment. Implementations that would require days, weeks or even months with an on-premise platform can now potentially only take hours. For the smaller company, this is a particularly cost-effective advantage since time to value is so critical. Integration is also simplified given the Cloud’s existing infrastructure, and again cost savings are achieved with no additional IT resources to manage.
Cloud computing is a game-changer, specifically for the small to mid-sized enterprise in need of expedited time to value and a lower total cost of ownership. Computing in the Cloud reduces the need for ongoing IT support and eliminates server down-time while increasing security, scalability, and overall reliability.