The impact of the cloud on the business world is difficult to overstate. Current trends suggest that the market for public cloud services alone will be worth $411 billion annually within the next two years, with double digit growth anticipated thanks to skyrocketing demand.
Of course all of the hype and hullabaloo surrounding this segment of IT has yet to convince every organization that the time is right to migrate away from on-premises solutions. If you are still on the fence, here is a look at just a few of the main reasons to move to the cloud.
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Understanding the market
Before delving into the merits that the cloud brings to the table, it is worth noting that it is no some homogenous, singular tech asset but rather an impressively diverse marketplace populated with a plethora of compelling products, solutions, systems and setups.
Although there are lots of variations and niches, it is helpful to think of the cloud market as consisting of three key categories.
Public cloud services are those which are wholly operated by third party providers and sold as a service to businesses and end users alike. This encompasses everything from data storage and video streaming solutions to publicly hosted software packages designed for specific industries or individual businesses.
Private cloud solutions are similar in terms of functionality and purpose to public cloud platforms, but remain distinct by virtue of being solely operated by and accessible to one organization.
Hybrid cloud configurations merge the public and the private to create a balanced approach, giving more flexibility to businesses that do not want to commit entirely to one or the other.
Extracting value
The principle advantage of moving to the cloud, particularly a public cloud platform, is that your business will no longer be responsible for the myriad costs and complications associated with managing software and hardware internally.
For example, while employees will still need cybersecurity training and a solid understanding of the threats they face, by shifting your IT resources to the cloud you will no longer need to worry about whether or not your systems will be able to withstand attempted breaches. Instead both the digital and physical security will be the responsibility of the provider.
Migrating to the cloud additionally means that the costs of procuring hardware itself, as well as housing it, maintaining it and upgrading it when the time comes, are no longer shouldered by your organization. It is the case that outsourcing these expenses to a cloud operator allows for a much more economic approach to IT across the board, giving you great value for money.
Of course there is the issue of the cloud making software accessible on a perpetual subscription basis, rather than something you can pay for once and use indefinitely without needing to splash out again. Even so, the cumulative value that the cloud represents is usually enough to outweigh this minor drawback.
Scaling to your needs
When relying solely on hardware and software hosted in-house, businesses can encounter issues related to a lack of scalability that arise both during peak periods and point at which demand is greatly reduced.
The cloud allows you to overcome this by giving you access to IT resources that are designed to scale to suit the peaks and troughs of usage that come with the territory.
This kind of adaptability comes into effect whether you are adding new users to a software setup, encompassing more visitors to your website when interest in your organization grows, backing up mission-critical data to preserve continuity or almost any other core activity.
It is also worth mentioning that this scalability also ties into the cost-effectiveness of the cloud. The greater your requirements, the more you will pay, although of course if you do have need of the vast resources that a third party provider can offer then it likely means that your revenues will easily justify this expenditure.
Making IT more accessible & reliable
The ace up the sleeve of cloud computing from a business perspective is that it allows organizations to give employees access to the software and data that they need to be productive in any location on almost any device.
Rather than needing to be at a desk in the office, modern team members can embrace home and remote working if they wish, improving both their productivity and job satisfaction.
Meanwhile the reliability of cloud services is second to none, making downtime and outages a thing of the past and meaning that even if disruption does occur, dealing with this is up to the provider.
Modern businesses need to be able to cope with whatever challenges may be thrown at them, and the cloud gives them the tools to do this at a price that they can afford.
