In this digital world where the technology is taking place of almost all traditional processes and making them dynamic. Cloud computing is also one of them that becomes an integral part of our lives and make it easier to perform complex tasks with the help of computing machines. In recent years, the cloud becomes the most popular and in-demand solution for organizations to store, access and process data. In order to geta proper answer to how the cloud is changing business, you need to remember the world before the cloud.
There was no efficiency and mobility because data was stored using traditional bookkeeping techniques where people had to be in any specific location if they wanted to read books. This world was very risky because if the library building is burnt out then books would be destroyed. I will try to answer your questions like how cloud has impacted big companies, the impact of cloud computing in future business strategies, how do organizations use the cloud and how the cloud is changing business.
The IT department of any company needs to continue expanding because the amount of data to be processed is increasing day by day and it is necessary to analyze this data in order to extract valuable insights from it. Cloud computing is not only the name of storing your data on the internet but it is also capable of doing so much more.
How the Cloud is Changing Business?
Cloud facilitates the confidential information to travel rapidly in both directions: across computing with virtualization technology and scaling up/down to efficiently handle the bigger workloads and higher level of security across thousands of computing machines.
Organizations are changing their business needs according to rapidly changing technology so that they can compete in the online world that is full of competition. Companies have different reasons for using cloud but the most important one is the lower costs because they don’t need to hire resources for increasing their computational power. Following are the most important
1. Operational Improvements
It is understood, most of the businesses are shifted on the internet and offering their services outside of their regions and countries because people like online shopping. Nowadays, the remaining traditional business is also trying to make their online presence to target more audience all over the world. These big business brands need a huge storage space that is necessary to fulfill their business needs.
Managed cloud services are highly scalable solutions and ensure that data storage requirements are always met. Why businesses are interested in using cloud services because they will only pay the based on the storage amount used and other resources. Why is cloud getting liked and valued by the people because they will only pay as much they use. So, every business can easily scale up or down based on business requirements and save costs. Big organizations are also hosting other applications and get benefits.
Nowadays, different collaboration and file-sharing platforms are offering alerts, meeting notifications, code histories and the ability to code is a collaborative environment that makes it easier for completion of the project within a record time period. Moreover, there is no need to worried about time zones, waiting for approvals or individual schedules.
Big companies and organizations are getting real benefits from cloud computing because they are able to apply a modular approach to business functions. Cloud computing is facilitating production teams to enjoy real-time collaboration and communication over secure virtual networks.
2. Deal with Customer Needs Effectively
Proactively designed customer support strategy plays a vital role in the success of any organization. Cloud technology helps to create effective, customer-oriented applications and adds a level of personalization. The employees can access the customers’ information from all over the world and offer real-time customer feedback. Cloud computing and hosting has simplified the way of connecting company employees with customers in a well-managed environment.
3. Cost savings and Cost Reductions
Cloud computing management is a way in which the data is stored in a centralized way and allow anyone to access the same information or data from any location. With the help ofthe cloud, the employees are able to work together in a tough situation and complete their tasks with better team collaboration within a short time period. Once all the processes aligned, definitely the company’s productivity will be increased and the cost will be reduced.
When you are using cloud business management tools then there is no need to worry about delayed responses to emails or phone calls because concerned persons will be granted access privileges to view or edit to any particular project. It will definitely boost the overall productivity and saves costs and precious time.
Cloud computing services also support cross-platform APIs and makes it easier to integrate with several systems. It also reduces the infrastructure costs by usingthe most reliable and powerful third-party infrastructure. Easier deployment and integration of cloud technology allows the businesses to be more innovative and agile with minimum financial risks. Small companies could not afford such a quality of services if they want to implement their own hardware.
4. Cost-effectiveness
It is another important factor because when you use dedicated servers or other traditional hosting services, you will pay the resource costs either you are using or not. But cloud computing for business or personal use reduces the costs because you will only pay for the storage space that you have used and computing power that you have consumed.
There is no need to hire a dedicated technical team for the management of servers and other technical problems because cloud vendors take care of deploying, managing and upgrading the systems as per your requirements. If you have a technical team then you can assign them other duties and utilize their skills to increase the overall productivity and performance.
How the cloud is changing business in this digital world can be analyzed from different aspects like companies don’t need to make an investment in hardware, they will only pay for the services they are using.
5. Security Considerations
With the increasing attacks of hackers, it is mandatory for any website either accepting online payments or not. Maintaining a higher level of security is necessary to build the trust of clients. Cloud providers implement a higher level of security mechanisms to fulfill the security needs of any organization. If you need extra security then you can also ask your managed cloud hosting provider to implement advanced security techniques. The data is stored in a centralized location protected with ironclad security tools to make sure a higher level of security.
There are many options available for storage of your data on the cloud such as SSD drives or extensive data caching. Cloud providers expertly configure the hardware and provide faster data access as compared to local storage. In fact, the cloud provides secure storage and enables stronger security measures for the quality of services.
6. Enhanced Flexibility
Cloud computing in business offers a maximum level of flexibility because employees working on a project or company can work together on a project from all over the world with a higher level of flexibility and mobility. It was not possible because of location restrictions but now anything is available without any time or location restrictions. Mobile devices make it possible to access the updated files with real-time collaboration and updates.
7. Work Never Stops
Data and files re available all the time, so anyone can get the updated files or edit them from anywhere having an internet connection and a computing device. How the cloud is changing business goals and impacting on their productivity? Cloud makes it easier to work from anywhere anytime, so it required a different level of commitment to work responsibilities. In other words, the cloud is providing a shared and collaborative environment where many developers can work on the same project with real-time communication.
Why Organizations are Shifting To Cloud-Native?
Let me introduce the cloud-native software approaches that are used to release the stress and low-impact changes of components of any given software application. A study of cloud-native application architecture and its impact on businesses is necessary to understand the real benefits. Big software applications are divided into a number of “microservices” that can be tweaked with little effect on a running piece of software.
Traditional complex software often has different relationships known as dependencies with other codes that save precious time in rewriting the code again. By orchestrating, microservices are stored in portable units, called containers. Now, it is possible to deploy and manage applications worldwide, from any single location without any difficulties.
Kubernetes was the most popular opensource software developed inside Google to run many global applications for orchestrating. Nowadays, google runs about 2 billion containers a week on its Kubernetes that is managed by the cloud-native computing foundation having its members Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, and many others.
The Blackrock (world’s largest asset manager) recently created an investor research application with the help of Kubernetes in 100 days. It is understood that Kubernetes encourages real-time collaboration where both junior and senior staff work together with much more rapid feedback from the customers.
How to manage the cloud is not your headache because you just rent computational power instead of buying assets. So, the cloud is the name of more flexible operating expenses rather than fixing capital commitment. How it was made possible? Because we shape our tools first (implementation of cloud technology) and then our tools shape us.
Most Common Cloud Services Adoption
1. Web Hosting
Most of the business brands required extensive computing resources with the highest level of security and availability. Some small-sized businesses can’t afford the greater resources, so cloud hosting facilitates both types of businesses with the highest level of scalability. They will only pay as much as they use the resources and enjoy the higher level of security and management without hiring any technical staff.
2. Productivity Solutions
Cloud computing business helps the organizations to reduce disaster recovery downtimes and reduce the IT workloads. It also increases the scalability, collaboration and consistency for customers and employees.
3. Email Hosting
Cloud-based email hosting stores your corporate emails in an off-site, highly protected and securer location. Moreover, there is no need to take care of your data storage and backups. It also saves the extra costs of onboard employees to manage these tasks.
4. Content Filtering
Content filtering is a way of blocking access to the content that may be deemed offensive, or inappropriate. In this internet world, where employees are accessing the website content from their own mobile devices, corporate-owned PCs and BYOD (bring your own devices) programs. So, the risk of cyber-attacks like malware and phishing is increased. Content filtering is used by organizations to minimize these risks by making such content difficult to access for illegal, inappropriate and objectionable content. In proactive business strategies, content filtering techniques are deployed across all content channels.
5. Online Backup/Recovery
In case of any disastrous situation, you can lose your confidential and important data if you take your backups on local storage. It is a proactive way to store your backup files on the could so that you can easily access your data from anywhere and start again your working even in any disaster.
6. Infrastructure
Cloud infrastructure (IaaS) offers additional benefits of lower ownership costs, higher scalability and flexibility. You can choose the right cloud service models like Saas, IaaS, Paas, and Faas according to your needs.
7. Industry-specific Applications
Many industries have different software vendors who have developed a specific business application to perform particular tasks. So, Cloud facilitates industry-specific applications.
8. Business Support
Around 28%of experts are using the cloud as business support and getting the real benefits of advanced technology.
9. Application Hosting
Today, application hosting is not a tough job. Before the cloud technology, the applications are hosting on different shared and dedicated servers connected with the internet. But now you can easily host your applications with greater flexibility and enhanced security.
Enterprise Cloud usage is Increasing
20% of the enterprises said that their annual spend is exceeded $12M and 26% are reporting between $2.4M to $12M. Annual public cloud spend by enterprises is increased as compared to last year and 13% have $600K to $1.2M as you can see in the picture given below:
Public Cloud Adoption for Enterprises
AWS is the most widely used public cloud provider with 76% of the users and only 12% are experimenting. If we compare the azure and AWS usages according to 2019 then both are increased with 9% having a closed gap. There is no need to worry about the management tasks because you have the option to buy a fully managed AWS Cloud.
Why Cloud VPS is Getting Value Over Traditional VPS?
VPS (Virtual Private Server) is the name of a hosting solution in which a physical server is divided into different independent parts or many physical servers are work as a single server using visualization technology. Cloud VPS is also a similar concept because it also provides the same functionality but with on-demand resources. Both are most widely used but it is important for you to choose one that provides you the incentives you are looking for. Let’s take a look at the features of both in terms of functionality, scalability, data security, cost and availability.
Traditional VPS
VPS hosting provides the options of customization, configuration, and administration like a dedicated server but it has lower costs than a dedicated server and higher than a shared hosting solution. Traditional VPS also provides the scalability in processing power, memory and storage space. The key features of a Virtual Private Server are control over virtual environment and security with the help of the same standards used for dedicated servers.
Every traditional VPS comes with a fixed price on a monthly basis or any specific time duration but when people increase the resources like memory, CPU cycles, and backups then they will pay more accordingly. Everyone can increase VPS resources as per the business requirements.
Cloud-based VPS
As I have discussed earlier, Cloud-based VPS also offers the same functionality but you will pay the bills on the basis of usages. The Cloud VPS is an ideal solution for unpredictable traffic and resource usages with higher availability. Once your business requires more space or computing power, you can get more resources within minutes and there is no need to changing your server settings or data migrations.
Cloud-based VPS vs Traditional VPS
Following are the main reasons that make Cloud-based VPS the best Virtual Private Server in the market:
1. Self-recovery Hardware
Consider a real-time example of a building where the electric generator provides the power supply in case of electricity failure and tolerate the fault. Cloud-based VPS is also providing the ability to proactively handle the failures and minimize the risk factor.
Consider the situation to understand how is this possible. when a component fails then it moves to another active node automatically with the help of virtualization technology. It means there is no downtime or any loss of service.
2. Scalable and Centralized Storage
Cloud VPS comes with a safe and centrally managed Storage Area Network (SAN) that provides the following features:
- There is no need for maintaining different disks
- Faster backup bandwidth and high-speed network
- Get quick and easy access to your data from all over the world
- Resource allocation as per your requirements
3. Efficient Load-Balancing
A gradual increase in the volume of website traffic can affect performance and increase the difficulties of your website visitors. In the case of traditional VPS, you will upgrade your server plan but in Cloud VPS, workloads are distributed across the nodes or servers in such a manner that each resource gives an enhanced performance.
4. Instant and Unlimited Scalability
There is no need to worry about the fluctuations in your business because you have the option to manage it more effectively. Cloud VPS hosting allows the businesses to instantly scale up/down the resources like disk space, bandwidth, CPU, RAM as per their business requirements.
Final Words
Cloud-based resources with advanced functions help the organizations to create new opportunities within a short time period. Another main advantage of cloud technology is the ability to shift the IT landscape to focus on different business strategies instead of dedicating time and valuable resources to technical problems. In short, cloud technology is not an alternate option but a pillar for future businesses.
