Cloud computing has been around for approximately two decades and after COVID, the cloud has become a reality that businesses must accept. According to a 2020 study by International Data Group, 81% of organizations are already using the cloud. That number is a significant increase from 73% in 2018 and it’s expected to continue rising.
To accelerate your business goals, you must understand how the cloud works. With this series of articles, we simplify the journey to the cloud for you.
First things first, let’s define the term “Cloud Computing” and its advantages? And if you’re interested in learning more about the cloud, then keep an eye out for the rest of the series.
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT services with pay-as-you-go pricing, including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet. Think of it as a utility bill as you only pay for what you consume every month. Currently, there are three cloud deployment models:
Private Cloud Refers to the on-site computing resources (servers and data centers) used by a business to manage and store their data. Businesses are often responsible for managing and containing private clouds. This makes them more expensive than the public and hybrid clouds, as they require a dedicated team on-site to maintain and deal with any issues that arise.
Public Cloud Refers to IT resources available through a third-party cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go pricing basis, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS). In that case, the provider is the one responsible for managing and maintaining hardware and cloud security while the business can focus on developing its products or services.
Hybrid Cloud As the name suggests, it is a mix of both private and public clouds. In some cases, companies prefer to split workloads between on-site data centers and servers and public cloud providers. This way, they can have more flexibility and deployment options.
The private cloud is considered the more expensive long-term option of the three. As with it, you may have wasted resources or maybe paying for more capacity and power than you need. More often than not you will find that you’re not using the servers to their full capacity, or if you are using them to their full capacity then upscaling might take you anywhere between weeks to months. This will depend on how fast and accurately you can purchase the new servers and data centers needed. Plus, there’s always the risk of underestimating how much computing power you need which could delay the process even more.
With the public cloud, however, you don’t have to worry about maintaining any hardware or underutilized resources. Plus, with the public cloud, scaling up or down is just a click away for businesses, making it easy for you to focus on the product/service first before deployment.
Why move to the cloud?
While cost is probably the most common reason businesses migrate to the cloud, it’s not the only one. There are many more reasons and advantages to the cloud than just cost. Here are the most common ones:
Speed and agility
With the cloud, IT resources are now just a click away. Which makes it easier for you to deploy any new feature/application in a couple of hours rather than days. As a result of lowering costs and the time it takes to experiment and develop new features/applications, your business’ agility dramatically increases.
Scalability
The cloud gives you the freedom to scale your business up or down according to your current needs. And because of public cloud providers’ pay-as-you-go policy, you only pay for what you’re currently using. This way your cost is always optimized.
Unlimited Storage Capacity
Running out of space will never be an issue anymore with the cloud. As it offers you unlimited storage capacity to store all your data. With it you can store as much data as you like without issues. And remember that you only pay for the capacity you use. So, you don’t have to worry about any unutilized space in your environment.
Back-up and Restore Data
With the cloud, you can back up your data without constraints so you can rest assured of its safety. As end-user data changes over time, you can easily track it for regulation purposes. And if the need arises, you can easily recover or roll back to an already backed up version.
Disaster Recovery
Cloud is global, meaning any instances on it are always running on multiple availability zones or regions. So, in the case of disasters, say your application goes down suddenly, it automatically fails over to the next working regions without any interruptions to end-users.
Optimized security
Cloud computing guarantees increased security for your data by having the best security and services. Due to a lack of time, skill, and budget, companies are having a harder time ensuring the security of their own IT system. This puts them at a greater risk of attacks. The cloud gives you peace of mind as your security is their priority. With cloud, you control where data is stored, who can access it, and what resources you’re consuming at any given moment. The cloud gives you the security you need to scale up securely with visibility and control.
Competitive Edge
Cloud has already provided the companies who migrated with a significant competitive edge. Considering how fast and secure it is, they now have more time to focus on further developing their product or service. They have the luxury of innovating and experimenting with no worries. Constant innovation is how you stay ahead of the competition and cloud makes innovation easy for your business.
Conclusion
Talking about the cloud as if it’s in the future is no longer helping you grow. It’s important that you start planning and strategizing for it as soon as possible. Especially if you want to stay ahead of the curve. Cloud gives you the freedom needed to reach your business goals. It helps you build sophisticated applications with increased flexibility, scalability, and reliability.
In this first part of our “Your Forte Cloud Journey” series we talked about what the cloud is and its benefits. Join us in the next article where we talk more about cloud computing types and the differences between them.
If you’re ready to start your journey now and looking for a trusted partner to guide you through it, don’t hesitate to contact us. By partnering with FORTE CLOUD, you’re guaranteed to receive excellent service as we were named APN AWS Partner for exceptional performance & commitment to the AWS customers
