Recent years have seen cloud services skyrocketing at an unprecedented rate. Forward-looking businesses have realized how the cloud helps them stay at pace with the changing demands and boost their bottom line. In fact, 67% of businesses say cloud financial management has helped catapult revenue.
Some organizations don't know its immense benefits and offerings, such as scalability, cost optimization, disaster recovery, business continuity, data sovereignty, and performance monitoring. As such, they're still on the fence about this cutting-edge technology. A deep dive into these benefits reveals the growing popularity of cloud services.
1. Scalability and Flexibility
With a cloud service, you can quickly add or reduce IT resources based on your demands. Such resources include networking, processing power, and data storage.
Cloud service vendors already have the resources you need. That means you can scale your operations quickly and easily without causing significant disruption. Thus, you can bid farewell to costly and time-consuming scaling that haunts on-premise infrastructure.
Virtualization is what makes the cloud scalable. While physical resources usually have set performance, virtual machines (VMs) are flexible. You can migrate heavy workloads to larger VMs and host the VMs on multiple servers (or a better server). Additionally, cloud service vendors and managed IT service providers invest vast resources ready to handle your fluctuating demands. That means you can focus on your core business and let them handle the scaling.
The benefits your business stands to reap include the following:
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Reduced time scaling: Your organization is just a few clicks away from adding extra VMs and customizing everything to meet your increasing demand.
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Speed: The organization can also respond to unexpected spikes in demand quickly without being tied down by outdated infrastructure. Overall, reducing resources when demand drops.
Scalability is the forte of cloud computing and services. In fact, 66% of a survey's respondents say it's among the main reasons behind the skyrocketing number of businesses migrating to the cloud. Other benefits that spill from scalability include quick disaster recovery and cost optimization.
2. Cost Optimization
Traditional on-premises solutions require installing and deploying expensive hardware and software. This process may take days or even months, costing you money in time wastage. You'll also need a trained workforce to operate and maintain these infrastructures.
Cloud service shoves these expenses out of your way to business success. It:
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Reduces hardware expenses: Cloud computing reduces the need for servers, hardware spaces, and components such as fans, processors, and memory. It also consolidates software and hardware in one place, saving you the cost of purchasing hardware- specific software for your legacy tools.
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Reduces electricity and rent expenses: Allowing a cloud service to store your data translates to minimized physical hardware space and electricity needed to run the hardware and components such as fans.
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Minimizes update costs: Cloud service providers update their software and hardware, saving you the stress of replacing data-server components.
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Enhances scaling: Only hop onto a higher payment plan if your data storage and other IT demands expand.
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Eliminates redundancies: Cloud services minimize those hefty data redundancy charges and the need for on-site backup servers. The automatic backup also reduces error-prone human interventions and costly downtime.
Cloud services' pay-as-you-go model is a game-changer in today's IT world. You only pay for the exact storage space you need. You can plan to purchase yearly, monthly, or as-needed packages instead of trying to figure out the cost of your data server.
With cloud services, your labor and maintenance costs also plummet due to decreased need for in-house hardware and software resources. Furthermore, employees' productivity and efficiency shoot through the roof as they don't have to deal with rigid and time- consuming legacy storage solutions, and if you leave the IT management to an external vendor, labor costs plummet significantly - think benefits, monthly salaries, paid leaves, bonuses etc.
3. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Natural calamities aren't the only disasters haunting businesses. In fact, human IT-related errors and cybercrimes are the most notorious disasters in today's business world. Luckily, cloud services provide robust business continuity (BC) solutions. An MSP can configure on-site workloads to fail over to the cloud. If your data center encounters challenges, mission-critical resources will continue operating, minimizing costly downtime.
Also, disaster recovery (DR) is a breeze. Reliable MSP will help you configure your on-site data safety solutions to continuously duplicate your data to the cloud. If a disaster hits your data center, this backup copy in an off-premise location lets you quickly recover your data. You may also purchase a cloud-based DR solution from a cloud service. This saves you the burden of purchasing, installing, configuring, and maintaining an on-premise security solution.
Thanks to the cloud solution's scalability, a sudden spike in workloads won't halt critical operations. The cloud service can provide extra virtual machines to handle the additional demand. Simply configure the service to jump into action automatically to avoid sluggish human intervention. Similarly, cloud services' scalability reduces the effects of cyberattacks such as DOS - where the bad players bombard your resources with overwhelming traffic, making them unavailable or sluggish. Scaling helps you meet this peak in demand, allowing you to continue using cloud resources as your cybersecurity soldier deals with the attack.
Finally, cloud services significantly minimize data recovery duration if a disaster strikes your organization. The backup copy is usually a few clicks away - no need to call engineer Edward (who might be enjoying his holiday) to come to solve the issue. Service delivery is the core business of an MSP. Their robust and rich networks of data centers are available to your business 24/7. In the event of data loss at your primary business premise, you can always count on them for business continuity.
4. Data Sovereignty and Compliance
Data sovereignty includes a country's rules and regulations governing data storage and use within its borders. These laws dictate the legal rights of the data's subjects. That means your responsibilities for the data you collect, store, and process will differ from one country to another. A country might restrict you from transferring data to other countries via cloud computing. Some jurisdictions also prohibit disclosing a person's data to third parties. Plus, your cloud-stored data might be under several jurisdictions' laws.
These challenges can be serious, especially if you employ hybrid-cloud storage solutions
or run a global organization. But a reliable MSP will come to your rescue here. They have data centers in various regions worldwide, allowing you to fine-tune each dataset's geographic location.
They also have data encryption features to ensure you comply with data requirements. Data sovereignty also governs backups. With the right cloud service and MSP, tracking your backup efforts is easy. Evaluating them is also a breeze, helping you ensure they align with a particular country's data sovereignty requirements.
5. Performance and Monitoring
You need to continuously keep an eye on your network performance in the cloud if you're looking to maintain scalability and agility. Ensure that accessibility, website loading times, and asset usage are always top-notch. But why should this homework be a 24/7 affair when you can leave it to a best-in-class cloud monitoring service?
Consistent monitoring minimizes disturbances and improves productivity. Your managed IT services can pinpoint discrepancies as they understand the entire cloud ecosystem. Their engineers can spring into action whenever a technical issue crops up. Thus, your clients and stakeholders won't contend with disruptions and stress.
Their cloud monitoring solutions also provide real-time alerts and updates. Such alerts help pinpoint the following:
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Strained or underutilized infrastructure, allowing you to strike a balance in capacity usage • Underperforming but critical areas that need enough effort or resources
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An incident that's threatening to slow you down
And the best part about cloud monitoring? You can always get a tailored solution that suits your specific needs. An MSP will easily install and configure what you need to stay ahead of the curve. For instance, you can work with them to choose monitoring of VMs, websites, cloud storage, and virtual networks.
The benefits of engaging a managed service provider for cloud monitoring don't stop there. Here are more things to expect:
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All-in-one platform
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Well-structured information:
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Easy-to-access information
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Cost-effective
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Water-tight security
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Boosted performance optimization
Teaming up with a managed service provider gives you access to cutting-edge tools, specialists, and talents. They can control and quickly pinpoint issues in real-time before they cause a huge nightmare. They also ensure you're back up and running like nothing happened.
Next I.T., Your Companion to Next-Generation IT Solutions
Cloud computing is a fast-moving train any business should hop onto to reach success. It's important to stay up-to-date with demands and changes in this wave to ensure you don't miss out on anything.
At Next-IT, we help businesses leverage the benefits and features of cloud services to slice through the competition. Here are some of the things we bring to your business:
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Secure working regardless of device or location: Your teammates can securely access and share information from their BYOD devices or the organization's computers.
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Office 365 migration tailored to your organization's needs: Our in-depth needs analysis ensures you get a solution that fits your organization perfectly.
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Customized data storage and sharing: We also help customize OneDrive to ensure your organization doesn't run out of storage.
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Security compliance: Stay up-to-date with every jurisdiction's data storage and processing requirements.
Contact us today to see how we are a great fit for your operations and needs.