Technology continues to grow by leaps and bounds, especially when it involves information technology for businesses. Always needing to know the best solutions for their IT operations, businesses everywhere are looking for answers. In today's high-tech world, cloud computing is quickly gaining momentum as the best way to improve business operations and productivity. When it comes to IT support and managed IT services, cloud computing offers businesses many key advantages.
Telecommuting Services
With the popularity of mobile devices growing by leaps and bounds, more businesses than ever are now looking at telecommuting as a way to not only save money, but also allow their employees to work from home or handle aspects of the job while on the go. Cloud computing allows employees to easily access data on their mobile devices, and it also allows employers to more easily hire off-site workers. By doing so, operational costs are reduced since the employer does not need to provide a physical work location for employees.
Outsourcing Services
Cloud computing allows for additional savings by making outsourcing even easier. Business activities such as customer service can be outsourced offsite or even overseas, making this a much more cost-effective option. By not having to do in-house hiring and provide a work location, thousands and sometimes millions of dollars can be saved.
Access Control
One of the biggest advantages to cloud computing is the safety of data. With hackers and scammers everywhere, IT support is made safer and more secure through the use of cloud computing. Physical servers are constantly being targeted by criminals hoping to gain access to personal information of customers or confidential information from businesses, so it's imperative to have a secure system in place. Cloud computing provides peace of mind when it comes to managed IT services, making sure tighter security is in place and access to files, data and other information is made safer than ever.
Data Duplication
When physical servers need to be used for data duplication, costs can be extremely high. However, cloud computing can solve this problem by performing the same tasks using virtual servers rather than physical ones, saving a business additional money on their managed IT services. Many businesses need to have multiple copies of information available in order to keep business operations streamlined, so using cloud computing allows this to be accomplished for pennies on the dollar compared to more traditional methods.
Business Relocation
As today's business world is prone to change, many businesses decide to relocate due to business trends or to save money. For businesses using traditional servers, relocation can be expensive as well as time-consuming. However, with cloud computing relocating becomes much easier and less expensive. Rather than taking time to set up new servers and other IT equipment, a business can instead relocate and almost immediately pick up right where it left off at its previous location.
With all of these reasons, it's no wonder cloud computing has achieved its current level of popularity. Keeping data safer, lowering costs and making business operations easier than ever before are just a few of the many reasons smart businesses everywhere are making cloud computing their first choice.
Having a disaster recovery plan (DRP) in place is essential to the survival of all businesses. Without a DRP, businesses are subject to the loss of data, revenue, and customer base during a disaster or downtime, which can be catastrophic. Many different DRP options exist, such as adjusting your in-house infrastructure, backing up data through a secure cloud hosting service, and adding redundancies to your servers so that there is little to no downtime in the event of an unforeseen circumstance. By having a proper DRP, you can ensure that your data is safe and your business will continue to operate even amidst a disaster.
Cloud computing technology spread around the globe rapidly and its adoption introduced different types of innovation in business environment. However, ever since the buzz around cloud-based tech solutions has started, the world’s eyes were set upon potential problems.
Over the last few years, the top concern for companies planning to move to the cloud has been security but as the cloud develops, new issues emerge. The recent survey carried out by Internap Network Services Corporation revealed some fresh pieces of information related to public cloud infrastructure. The survey polled almost 250 Internet infrastructure decision makers worldwide to give us a new insight into the state of public cloud adoption and usage.
Security is still a top concern
Just like many other surveys did over the last several years, Internap confirmed that modern businesses (unjustifiably) fear security threats in the cloud. Even though only 15% of companies that already use cloud services regarded security as a challenge, 40% of those that still haven’t adopted the cloud find security a major concern. These digits point out that security risks may be highly overestimated, considering the fact that most organizations that actually use the cloud don’t experience major problems in this respect.
Performance issues on the rise
While security remains the top concern for organizations that are not using cloud services, performance seems to be a major problem for those that do. The survey reports that 30% of cloud-wise organizations faced performance issues, along with 59% of those that use the cloud to host big data applications. In reference to this issue, Gopala Tumuluri from Internap notes:
“The survey data clearly indicates that big data applications – such as those that enable personalization and targeting through customer insights, social analytics and location mapping – are pushing the performance limits of virtual public cloud environments at price-points that don’t make business sense”.
Public cloud and virtualization
Among other things, the survey revealed that an important number of organizations (66%) mistakenly relate virtualization to public cloud. Most respondents have cited virtualization as “a defining characteristic of the cloud” which confirms that they still have a lot to learn about these innovative technologies. Namely, public clouds don’t have much to do with virtualization, even though they may share some similar features. Therefore, it is clear that despite the buzz surrounding the cloud for years, its definition remains vague to both companies that use it and those that don’t.
Conclusions
Public cloud systems are now widely used in companies of all sizes and they certainly represent one of the most efficient forms of IT infrastructure innovation. Infant trend as it is, cloud computing may still appear confusing, which is why companies are likely to have some impossible expectations from it. Here security is obviously an important yet overestimated factor, while virtualization is obviously not well understood. The findings of the survey help general public get a better insight into predominant issues in the cloud, and it’s up to individual organizations to develop their own strategies with cloud-based systems.
Author Bio:
Leana Thorne is a devoted blogger and a regular contributor to several tech blogs. She enjoys exploring new internet technologies and sharing newly found information – currently about cloud and reseller hosting and is always happy to be of help.
