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Businesses are flocking to the cloud — quickly replacing the norm of companies owning and operating physical data centres. Experts say that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to cloud technologies five years ahead. Companies have seen five years’ worth of cloud-driven tech transformation in just two years.
While few businesses adopt 100% cloud, many go for the hybrid environment.
Many companies realized that embracing cloud technology increased their business’ flexibility, agility and boosted security. If your business is looking to leverage cloud computing, this guide will walk you through the entire process.
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the internet instead of local data centers or computers. While most people primarily associate cloud computing with backup and file storage, the technology offers more for business, including:
Almost all companies are using some form of cloud today to transform their operations, save on operating costs, increase business flexibility, and maximize resources.
Your business can embrace cloud solutions in different ways, such as:
1. Cloud Storage
The most basic way any business can leverage cloud computing is by adopting cloud storage. Cloud storage allows businesses to store, access, and retrieve data from any device.
After adopting the technology, businesses will only need to sign in to their account to utilize all functions of cloud storage.
Storing data in the cloud allows scalability, as a business only pays for storage it currently needs and can upgrade any time depending on the business’s current needs and budget. More importantly, a company can move data it doesn’t frequently access — like the archive — into a lower-cost tier cloud storage.
2. Communications and Collaborations
The cloud is excellent for business communications and collaboration. Co-workers can access a cloud-based communication tool like Microsoft Teams to communicate and collaborate without physical meetings.
For instance, Microsoft Teams has a build-on-the cloud infrastructure that allows workplace communication and collaboration such as:
Cloud provides nearly all communication and collaboration functions on one platform.
3. Software Development and Testing
Cloud computing presents solutions that allow businesses to create a virtual environment for software development and testing. A business can use the cloud platform to build and stress-test software.
As a result, the developers can measure traffic, performance, and loads without building a software infrastructure from scratch.
4. Back-up and Disaster Recovery
Cloud storage providers offer excellent backup and disaster recovery solutions. The Cloud offers reliable data backup solutions that protect businesses from disastrous consequences such as:
Cloud back-up will allow your business to recover data your business lost in its original state before a disaster or attack.
5. Big Data Analytics
Many businesses deal with a huge amount of data every day. Some don’t know what to do with the big data and fail to leverage such data to streamline their businesses’ operations and goals.
Cloud computing presents a way that even a small business can leverage big data analytics to its advantage. With cloud computing, you collect and analyze cloud data without spending a fortune.
Your business can extract data from the cloud, spot trends, and draw meaningful insights to drive your business toward growth.
What defines a cloud type is how its platform is deployed. There are five types of cloud deployment, including:
The community cloud platform can be managed by a third party or all the organizations sharing the server. The main benefit of community cloud is scalability at a cost distributed among organizations.
Your business can adopt three cloud computing service models depending on your business requirements. The models include:
1. Software as a Service (SaaS)
When a business goes for a Software as a Service model, the cloud provider will relieve you of the duty of managing the cloud infrastructure, software management, data availability and security.
In other words, all your applications are web-based, and all you need to access your software is to log in to an online account on any device. You can assign all your employees’ personalized logins.
2. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
IaaS defines resources such as networks, virtual private servers, storage facilities, and processing power that your business demands over the internet. You’ll be charged on a pay-as-you-go basis, depending on your consumption over time.
IaaS eliminates the need to invest in expensive hardware.
3. Platform as a Service (PaaS)
A PaaS cloud vendor offers both software and infrastructure as a service over the internet. PaaS is excellent for building applications. When you buy PaaS, your developers won’t need to start coding apps from scratch when building applications, which saves you time and money.
When planning to migrate to the cloud, your business needs to answer some key concerns. You need to execute a perfect cloud strategy, ensure your migration stays on time and budget, and meet your business expectations.
For over three decades, Compunet Infotech has been helping businesses in Vancouver with their IT, and we can assess your business for cloud services. We’ll audit your business, execute cloud analysis, and propose the right cloud framework for your company to migrate to the cloud.
Contact us today for a review of your cloud strategy to minimize risks and maximize success.
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