For some time now, cloud computing has been hyped as the future of information technology. Many experts in this field believe that approximately 90 percent of professionals will be moving their operations to the cloud by 2022. If you are a business owner or an IT expert, you might ask yourself why cloud computing is so hyped while there is already an infrastructure that works. Now, to separate the hype from reality, we can look at what a cloud infrastructure offers.
1. Reliability
Typically, working with all your servers close by gives a sense of control. For instance, if one server fails, you can walk over and make a fix. However, this setting has one problem; if a bad accident or catastrophe happens, the physical computing hardware might also get destroyed. In addition, you will lose all your files, data, and expensive servers. Now, if you migrate to cloud computing, you wouldn’t have to worry about incidents that might physically destroy your computing infrastructure. For instance, if a tsunami were to hit your office, you wouldn’t need to inform your clients of a ‘service shutdown’ frantically. Instead, you would need to inform your staff to work from home. In essence, cloud computing gives you reliable delivery, unlike the physical infrastructure.
2. Flexibility
Server storage is very critical for organizational operations. Typically, most organizations have their systems running continuously for a seamless customer experience. Essentially, this is critical for social listening, market intelligence, marketing, and client services. However, all the processes involved during all these operations require space. Therefore, for each business operation, your server’s storage space gets consumed. Now, assuming you are running your servers on location and installed several zillions of Terabytes of disk space, some of your services would experience a shutdown when the space runs out.
Consequently, this will lead to an outage of customer service and some serious legal problems. With cloud infrastructure, you are afforded flexibility in terms of the storage space you need. This will give you the ability only to consume what you need. If you are a business-minded person, you understand that this saves you a good amount of dollars.
3. Convenience
Convenience is becoming an essential aspect of business operations. For instance, in the past, when all the staff members had to work at a particular physical location or office is gone. Currently, cloud computing offers your staff members the opportunity to work from any location and be productive. In essence, simple and complex tasks can be done through collaboration done over long distances. Essentially, this opens up a future where no physical offices are required, and staff can work from coffee shops or a study office at home. Consequently, you get to cut down on expenses such as rent and office build maintenance.
4. Optimization of Costs
Assuming you run an office with several teams in IT and multiple on-location servers, you would have to pay for electricity expenses – servers consume a lot of power -, salaries, and maintenance for the server equipment. Typically, this addition of overheads on your costing sheet will consequently lead to adverse effects on the organization’s bottom line. If this continues over an extended time, you might even experience low income and even losses. In business, it is advisable to cut down on expenses to retain more revenue. Therefore, if you would cut down on costs arising from on-location servers, then you would probably improve your margins. Typically, with cloud computing, you get charged for the type of services you need. In essence, you will not be charged for server maintenance or extra power consumption from the server. Typically, with cloud computing, you will not need the extra hands in IT, which means you also get to reduce the amount of money going to salaries.
5. Scalability
The current economy and the many startups coming up each day require scalable IT solutions that can be expanded or contracted with demand. This becomes the case due to the rising uncertainty in businesses. With cloud computing, you get elastic and scalable pricing that is customized for your particular needs.
Apart from these features, you also get high-speed service delivery, outsourced IT modeling that comes with very high security, and access to other services that complement your business. With this information, you can say that cloud computing is an essential aspect of the future of organizations. In addition, with the evolving business needs, cloud computing offers the best environment. Therefore, we can confidently say that cloud computing is worth the hype.
