9 Ways Cloud Computing Can Drastically Improve Your Business

There are plenty of organizations who have taken the plunge into cloud computing by now. If you’re still on the fence about moving to the cloud, here are nine strong reasons why you should.

First is that it can fit just about any global strategy. Next it offers reduced capital and operational costs. The cloud is safe and secure. Most likely more secure than your current infrastructure. Thirdly, the data belongs to you. Additionally, only authorized users can get into your services. There are plenty of skilled workers available in this area and training is readily available with certifications. The cloud offers the ability to focus on what matters to your organization instead of keeping hardware and software up to date. It is also extremely flexible. It can be reached from anywhere. Data can also be easily backed up and distributed across the country or world to meet disaster recovery needs.

There are plenty of options out there for cloud computing but the top 3 are: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

1) Business Strategy

Just about any business strategy can be achieved by using the cloud. Whether you are a startup just beginning in your community or you are a massive enterprise looking to expand globally, cloud computing has what you need. Companies like Netflix depend on the cloud for their business. Getting started is very simple and requires little upfront investment. You can set up resources close to where your customers are located. It can handle high traffic loads that you are expecting. When someone wants that hot item for Christmas, you don’t have to worry about your site crashing due to demand. It can also handle being available 24/7. Its costs are considerably lower than having an on-premise, in-house solution. Data centers are expensive to operate and require staff.

2) Reduce Capital and Operational Cost

This may be the best reason out of this collection. Getting started in cloud computing is fairly inexpensive. You can try out your designs, infrastructure and applications for very little cost. No longer do you need to supply the pricey hardware for your trial run. You simply login to the console, spin up the proper type of resources, configure them and go. You only need to pay for what you are using. This type of infrastructure where someone else owns the hardware is game changing. No longer do you have to have staff to keep the machines up-to-date, running, and secure. There is also much more cost savings due to almost no downtime. Rarely will you experience downtime with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. There are redundancies, regions and backups available across the offering.

Getting started in the cloud is extremely helpful for startups trying to get off the ground. They can get things rolling minimally and grow as demand grows. Getting your minimum viable product out is much easier this way. Most of the time scaling is as easy as clicking a button. Wow! No more long hours getting ready to expand your presence on the internet. There is less effort in growing your infrastructure.

3) Safe and Secure

This is often a top concern for those not willing to jump into the cloud. There is a genuine concern that not having the machines on site is a big security risk. On the contrary, there are far more people working in AWS, Azure, or Microsoft’s data centers than in any one company’s own data center. They are working with the sole job of keeping things secure, up-to-date and humming along. There has also been the offering recently of bringing your own encryption keys used to encrypt your data on AWS. Instead of having AWS create keys for you, they allow you to create and manage your own. This helps to make some of the most skeptical adopters more open to the idea of cloud computing.

4) Data Ownership

Data belongs to you the entire time. The cloud providers do not own any of it, nor will they look at your data. They actually do not have the ability to look at it without you directly them access. And even in those cases, it isn’t a normal function. AWS reps have confirmed that there is no one who can look into your data from a help desk type of role on Amazon’s side. Even more so, the cloud offers all types of encryption or allows you to first encrypt your data before it ever reaches the cloud. Your data is yours, simple as that.

5) Only Authorized Users Have Access

As alluded to above, only those you give access to can access your data and resources. Usually, the best practice is to give only a handful of individuals full administrative rights. These may be directors or managers of security or cloud computing. Then all subsequent usage is setup by using IAM (AWS Identity and Access Management) roles. This allows for individuals to get only the access needed to do their job. This won’t allow them to make unnecessary charges to a corporate account. Limiting control is extremely important to ensure your ability to control costs.

6) Skills Needed

When turning to the cloud, an organization will need skilled workers. For those already a part of the organization, there are plenty of resources to leverage. Tutorials and training resources are available for free online and allow employees to get up to speed quickly with targeted knowledge. There is also a lot of skilled workers in the workforce for any future hiring. It shouldn’t be hard to find the right people in the marketplace. There are certifications available for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to ensure that people know how to work with whichever provider you choose.

7) Productive and Focused

This is a key item in using cloud computing. The developers and operation folks can now be more productive. This is mostly due to the fact that they can focus on making your applications shine. They no longer need to worry about applying patches. No need to coordinate downtime to install a new piece of hardware. Instead they can focus on application performance and functionality.

8) Flexibility

This is another possible area to save money. Workers can literally be anywhere in the world to accomplish what they need with cloud computing. Most work is done completely through the console or through software development kits (SDKs). Unless there is a driving reason to have them on-premise, employees can be at home or personal offices to accomplish their jobs. This reduces the need for companies to spend on buildings, utilities and other necessities.

9) Backup and Disaster Recovery

This is also a game changer. Backing up your information on the cloud is pretty simple. It is as simple as point and click. The data can be saved to other regions wherever you would like them to be. If a region goes down, another region can pick up right where the other left off. This is a wonderful disaster recovery plan. A company can do all of its work completely from one region in Eastern US and backup to the Western US. Normally a disaster that affects the West isn’t also affecting the East at the same time.

Conclusion

You can see how powerful the cloud can be for you and your company. At whatever stage you are at, leveraging the cloud can be what sets you apart from a competitor. Take your strategy, reduce costs, stay secure, own your data, limit access, find skilled laborers, be productive, stay flexible and easily avoid disasters with cloud computing. FHG works with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and more. If you would like to see how FHG can help in this area, please don’t hesitate to start the conversation.