Should I move my Business to the cloud?

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of information technology resources over the internet often on a pay as you go model. As opposed to purchasing and maintaining physical data centers and servers, businesses can access their technological services, whether it be applications, storage or databases through a provider with just an internet connection.

“Modern businesses often expect to have access to data the instant they need it. Moving your business to the cloud can be intimidating, however setting the right goals that fit your business can help to smoothens things along.”

Here we will discuss some benefits a business will experience by moving to the cloud and reasons to consider making the switch.

Benefits of cloud computing

The ability to move away from physical data centers and servers has made cloud enterprise solutions become a practical and financially sensible option for many businesses, regardless of their size.Cloud providers utilize the advantages of scale in large datacenters and facilities to develop services in data storage, disaster recovery, virtual desktops, software development and so much more, which are then made available to customers as needed and for a monthly or yearly fee. IT systems often have short infrastructure lifecycles and for many, this is a pragmatic and financially viable solution that helps to tradesometimes expensive Capital Expenditure (CapEx) to Operational Expenditure – OpEx . Essentially, they can pay for IT services as they consume them.

Furthermore, cloud computing can prove to be quite flexible in terms of capacity. Services can be turned off, up or down depending on the needs of the business. For example, meeting demands due to a sales promotion can take advantage of an Auto-scaling feature to increase computing power for periods of peak demand, this mean that servers do not crash, and the capacity can be reduced once the sale promo is over.

Divisions of cloud computing

• Data storage–With cloud storage, a business has the flexibility of accessing their data from anywhere while having the benefit of redundancy built in. A typical example of this type of service is your Dropbox or Google drive which allows you to store your files and other information formats without the need to maintain a physical hard drive. At an Enterprise level, businesses can subscribe to a full suite of services to manage databases and large storage volumes.

• Infrastructure as a resource (IaaS) – Infrastructure as a service involves a method where the delivery of anything from operating systems to servers is carried out as part of an on-demand service. Customers can avail cloud computing without the need to purchase software or servers and do so through an on-demand service. A viable example is IBM Cloud.

• Software as a resource (SaaS) – Software as a service is where the licensing of a software application is provided to customers. These licenses are generally offered on a pay as you go model when there is demand. An example of this system is Microsoft Office 365.

• Platform as a service (PaaS) – Platform as a service is when a platform of sorts is provided to users and they can create software that is delivered through the internet. An instance of a PaaS is Sales Force.

There would be a myriad of reasons for cloud adoption, however most businesses utilize cloud services for storage for redundancy, mobility and collaboration. This is a constantly evolving field with offered services now including microservices and edge computing to power new Internet of Things – IoT services.