The COVID-19 pandemic has affected pretty much every existing industry and niche. This prompts more and more companies to use remote access technology - in particular, cloud-powered solutions. Let's take a look at the general characteristics and benefits of moving to the cloud today.
Cloud & Cloud Services: What’s it all About?
Cloud is online storage where data is stored on servers distributed over a third-party hosted network. These servers can often be geographically distributed over distant parts of the world. Cloud data is only accessed online unless it is timely cached for offline use. Modern cloud technologies bring ultimately flexibility and functionality to companies.
Cloud services are platforms and programs that use cloud resources to store data. By creating an account on such a platform, a user gets to access data from any device, anywhere in the world.
Types of cloud services
There are three major cloud software formats:
- PaaS - Platform as a Service. It is a cloud-based development environment with resources to deliver both simple and advanced cloud applications. According to the statistics below, 6% of the world's cloud workloads were on PaaS in 2020.
- SaaS - Software as a Service. This is a software subscription licensing model. According to statistics, in 2020, SaaS accounted for 78% of all cloud workloads in the world.
- IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service. These are servers, data warehouses, operating systems that are provided to clients to run their own software solutions. Accordingly, in 2020, IaaS accounted for 16% of the world's cloud workloads.
Companies pick one or another type of cloud service based on their financial capabilities, the required level of functionality customization, as well as the presence or absence of their own IT specialists on the staff.
Top 11 Benefits of Moving to the Cloud
Let’s find out why move to the cloud at all and whether it’s the right decision for the further development of your business.
Scalability
The first among the major benefits of moving to the cloud is operational flexibility. Truly, cloud solutions are ideal for growing or changing bandwidth needs. If required, you can easily increase or decrease the size of the cloud storage using remote servers. This level of flexibility can give businesses a competitive edge. That’s why so many companies are focused on remote software capabilities, looking to keep everything under control.
Highly-available tech support
Cloud solutions are very convenient due to availability on demand. Users don’t need to wait for the IT department’s response to clarify questions and solve issues. Cloud providers guarantee 24/7 support because their services work without any downtime and constant monitoring is required.
Availability from any web-connected device
Cloud computing solutions are available through a wide range of devices, which makes it possible to use not only a laptop or PC for handling corporate tasks but also mobile devices - be it a smartphone or tablet.
No hosting downtimes
The convenience of the cloud is that the servers are out of the room and out of sight. Vendors take care of the servers for you, regularly release software and security updates, so you don't have to spend time maintaining the system yourself.
Cost-efficiency
When it comes to the cost benefits of moving to the cloud - you pay as you use server resources, following a subscription-based model. There is a counter in the cloud that reports resource usage.
This ensures that the user only pays for what they used. On top of that, you don’t have to pay large amounts for the transition to the cloud as compared to the expansion of the physical server capacity (which requires the help of a full-time IT specialist or a whole department to support a local server).
Data backups
Companies usually invest in emergency data recovery. But small businesses often lack experience or funds for this. The cloud helps you avoid overspending by making recovery solutions available out-of-the-box (for example, via the default automatic backup feature).
Data security
The loss or breakdown of portable corporate equipment costs companies a fortune - for instance when important data is stored locally and there are no backup copies. In such cases, cloud storage ensures maximum safety and security of data, and you can access it no matter what happens to your computer.
Big data compatibility
Because of the sheer size and sensitivity to the latency of big data, it is important to store it in a secure and efficient environment. And the cloud is your best bet here. Thanks to cloud services, big data can be processed on your computers with maximum performance, without interfering with the execution of other running processes.
Thus, big data and cloud computing technology is an ideal combination that simultaneously scales and meets the highest demands for processing speed of computing operations.
Eco-friendliness
Since you don’t need a lot of equipment, your business will help reduce thermal emissions into the environment (as you know, full-fledged server rooms under high loads overheat, which forces companies to install additional powerful cooling systems). Thus, you reduce company costs and free up physical space at the same time.
Data synchronization
The more employees work on the document, the greater the need for control over the changes made. Before the cloud, you had to send files as email attachments that could be accessed by one user at a time, after which you often found a ton of conflicting content, formats, or titles.
These workflow complications are completely unnecessary. When you use a cloud platform, everything is stored centrally and everyone sees the same version of the file.
Competitive edge
Moving to the cloud brings enterprise-class technology to everyone. This allows small businesses to act faster than large competitors. Pay-as-you-go helps further optimize costs for an organization on a modest budget.
Bottom Line
Considering all of the above advantages, we can conclude that turning to cloud services will increase the security of data, simplify access, and help reduce the cost of equipment maintenance and personnel management.
If you are interested in moving to the cloud or implementing a project of your own, contact us to get high-quality cloud computing consulting and cloud migration services.
