With more and more businesses switching to cloud computing, storage and solutions in general, it’s important to start considering whether it’s the time for your business to follow suit. One of the biggest problems with a decision of any kind lies in the fact that you may lack a point of reference. You see, it would be impossible to say just how good cloud computing actually is without having something to compare it to. Here are six advantages that it has over a traditional, on-premise, model, as well as six compelling reasons why your business should switch from on-premise to cloud computing.
1. Reduced cost
When it comes to running a business (or even a household budget), any solution that can get you the same or similar results at a lower cost is an outstanding opportunity that you can’t afford to miss out on. With cloud computing, you get to experience the pinnacle of frugality. Some software licenses are simply too expensive for small and medium businesses. However, with the help of this trend, they can still get to use them. Other than this, the cost of maintenance is included in the price, as well. Seeing as how this is something that you would have to outsource separately, you stand to make a massive saving in this field. The predictability of costs is yet another massive plus in favor of cloud computing.
2. Upgrades
The main reason why so many businesses are renting out equipment instead of buying it is due to the fact that they want the flexibility that comes with this trend. Soon, if there’s new superior hardware on the market, it’ll be much easier to just switch to it instead of having to sell or trade-in your old equipment. Something similar happens with software, as well and this is what cloud computing is all about. We’re not necessarily talking about changing the software that you use, due to the fact that it will probably be automatically upgraded to the latest version. Sure, these upgrades are not always as automatic as they may seem but the entire process is much more user-friendly.
3. Easier to scale
The next thing you need to understand about cloud computing is the fact that it’s much easier to scale than hardware on premise. This is self-explanatory actually, seeing as how all the updates and server upgrades are systemic. Other than this, you also need to take into consideration the fact that enterprise cloud computing services also include security virtualization, storage virtualization, compute virtualization and cloud management platform. All of these trends tend to evolve and improve over the course of time and with cloud services, all of these updates and improvements are automatic and seamless. Therefore, migration to cloud sounds like an obvious choice.
4. Free support
Now, when we say free, we aren’t necessarily using this word in its literal form. The cost of your IT support and maintenance is already in the price of the services. However, what you do get is worry-free support. This means that you don’t have to worry about the logistics behind this maintenance. Think about it, you would have to outsource this support either way but you would also have to coordinate between your business and the agency that you’re outsourcing to. You would also have to do a background check on the agency and separately negotiate their services. This way, you get it all in a much simpler way.
5. Instant deployment
One particularly vital factor that you may not appreciate enough at the moment is the importance of the ability to instantly deploy all your digital asset to any office that you own. As we said, at the moment your company may be on a single location, but what happens when you decide to outsource? Well, with cloud computing on your side, it will be quite easy to expand. In this particular case, the setup can be deployed in the matter of hours (sometimes even days), instead of you having to wait for a physical server to be set up and on-premise applications to be installed on every single device.
6. Going green
The last thing worth taking into consideration is the fact that cloud computing is much eco-friendlier than its on premise equivalent. First of all, there’s active virtualization of resources taking place (something that we’ve already discussed to a degree), which, on its own makes a compelling case in favor of lowering your carbon footprint. Even more important is the fact that you only pay for those resources and assets that you actively use. Otherwise, we would have a scenario where you would have to choose between investing in assets that are more potent than what you need and assets that are slightly under your requirements. Most companies opt for the first option, which contributes to the overall problem.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that the benefits of cloud computing depend on your business model, as well as that there are no one-size-fits-all when it comes to setting up your business infrastructure. Nevertheless, migrating to the cloud simply offers more advantages than you could ever ignore.
