What are the advantages of Cloud Computing Services for Your Business

Data storage is one of the biggest issues which most companies face to date. In the earlier years, people used to run programs or applications from the software which would be downloaded from a server or a physical computer. Businesses are ready to invest a large sum of money, to overcome this problem. Cloud computing services allow entrepreneurs to use those applications and software without downloading them. As per International Data Group, 69% of businesses are already using cloud technology in one capacity or another. Despite this, many small businesses still don’t understand the advantages of cloud computing for their business.

For companies extending their infrastructure or launching innovations, cloud computing has become the ideal way. To be precise, it delivers computing services like servers and storage over the internet. Also, the companies that offer these services are called cloud computing consulting services. With the growing transition, it is always difficult for an individual to keep all their vital information stored on-in house computer servers. Cloud computing runs on a simple principle where users have all the access to files without having a bulk on the system. Gmail, Google Drive, TurboTax, Facebook, and Instagram are examples of cloud-based applications.

Types of Cloud Computing Services

Cloud computing services fall into three broad categories, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), Software as a service (SaaS) and one can pick any of these services based on your business requirements. Let us discuss these in detail:-

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

It is the most basic category of computing services. IaaS sidesteps the expense and lets you pay only for the services you need to rent. It provides computing resources like processing power, memory, storage, and networks for cloud users to run their applications on-demand. IaaS model enables IT users to access infrastructure resources over the internet.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS provides a variety of programming languages for developers to develop innovative applications. It facilitates collaboration among developers. It is a category of cloud computing services, which offers a platform to its customers to develop, test, deploy, host, and maintain applications in the same Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS provides the ability to end users to access an application over the internet, which is hosted and managed by the service provider. SaaS providers offer services to create, manage, and track electronic documents. Most of the enterprises extensively use e-documents for their business. In the traditional software model, the software was delivered as a license-based product, which needs to be installed in an end-users device, and SaaS is delivered as an on-demand service over the internet, so, there is no need to install the software on the end user’s device.

Based on the hosting i.e deployment and usage, cloud computing services are further divided into four types:-

Private Cloud

This cloud computing environment resides within the boundaries of an organization and is used exclusively for the organization’s benefits. This is a great option for companies having large data centers as they can use their current infrastructure. It is deployed and managed by an organization itself; hence there are minimal chances of data being leaked. Data is usually stored in the same geographical location where cloud users are present.

Public Cloud

This environment can be used by the general public including individuals, corporations, and other types of organizations. Typically, public clouds are administered by third parties or vendors over the internet, and services reoffered on a pay-per-use basis, it consists of users from all over the world wherein a user can simply purchase resources on an hourly basis and work with such resources which are available in cloud provider’s premises. One of the most common examples of public cloud is Amazon Web Services.

Hybrid Cloud

It can be a combination of both public and private clouds in which at least one public crowd for external and one private cloud for internal computing environments. A hybrid cloud has the property of a public cloud with a private cloud environment and as the public cloud is scalable, a hybrid cloud is also scalable.

Community Cloud

It is a cloud infrastructure that is provisioned for exclusive use by a special community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns. It may be owned, merged, and operated by one or more organizations in the community, a third party, or a combination of them, and it may exist on or off-premises. In this, a private cloud is shared between shared organizations.

Advantages of Cloud Computing Services for Your Business

Cloud computing helps companies to scale up to massive capacities instantly, without having to invest in any new infrastructure, train new personnel or licensing any new software, Cloud computing is beneficial to both, small, medium, and large-sized business, to businesses who wish to completely outsource their data-center infrastructure; or businesses who wish to get peak load capacity without incurring the higher cost of building larger data centers. In both of these instances, you have to pay only for what you use. Many companies these days are integrating cloud-based solutions and have already started their working on cloud migration.

If you’re still not sure if the cloud is right for your workloads or not, here, are some benefits of cloud computing infrastructure that businesses can take advantage of in today’s day and age:

1. Cost reduction

Cloud computing services may reduce the cost of maintenance of the infrastructure. Instead of installing big systems, you can simply install the resources of a cloud computing system. Cloud is offered to the public on a pay-as-you basis, which means the user has to pay only for what he uses.

This is one of the main advantages as, if you don’t make use of the offer provided by the cloud, you won’t have to pay for it. Half of all CIOs and IT leaders surveyed by a leading company reported cost savings in 2015 as a result of using cloud-based mobile apps. There are many reasons why cloud-based mobile apps are a good investment like one-time-payments, pay-as-you-go, and other scalable options available, which make the cloud very reasonable for the company.

2. Flexibility

The cloud offers more flexibility to the business, as despite being wholly focused on infrastructure, computer. And data storage issues, you can give attention to business and satisfying the customer needs. A 65% majority of respondents to an InformationWeek survey said “the ability to quickly meet business demands” was one of the most important reasons a business should move to a cloud environment.

3. Scalability

With increasing business demands, you can easily increase the cloud capacity. It enables the business to scale up or down as per the business needs. It enables the servicing of business requirements for larger audiences through high scalability. It works in a “distributed model” environment. It shares resources among users and tasks, which improves efficiency and agility.

4. Security

A leading source claims that 94% of businesses saw an improvement in security after switching to the cloud and 91% said the cloud makes it easier to meet government compliance requirements. By using the option of encryption the chance of hacking the data minimizes, also, mostly these thefts in the business are committed by the employees. This makes it safe by keeping sensitive information offsite. Also as per the convenience and security, the user can change the safety settings. Cloud computing is simple to deploy, highly secure, and produces a better experience and more and more companies are opting for cloud computing for data security.

5. Disaster Recovery

Cloud computing is a combination of software and hardware-based computing resources delivered as a networked service. These applications and resources can be accessed using a simple front-end interface such as a web browser from any client like desktop or mobile devices.

Since data is stored in the cloud, backing it up and restoring the same is relatively easier than storing the same on the physical device, Cloud computing service providers are competent enough to handle recovery of information which makes the entire process of backup and recovery much simpler. There are times when the computer crashes, the reason can be any, but if you have stored the data on the cloud, the information is accessible with the help of internet connection.

6. Mobility

Once registered in the cloud, businesses can access information from anywhere at any time via the internet. It let one move beyond time zone and geographic location issues.

Let’s take an example of this pandemic situation where if the data is not stored on the cloud, one can’t have access to the complete data to work from home. 24/7 via any choice of the device one can have access to all the data stored on the cloud by sitting in any corner of the world until you are connected with the internet. This saves both time and team effort in maintaining the systems as it automatically upgrades with time. These days more and more companies are hiring professional IT services, to get the best, cloud computing solution for their business.

7. Increased Collaboration

A Team means the collaboration of two or more employees or a company. Cloud computing makes this process simple. Team members can share and view the information securely on the cloud computing platform and hence is easy to access and discuss at any point of time and place with good internet services. Collaborative social spaces are provided by a few of the cloud services to connect employees across the organization, therefore increasing interest and engagement.

8. Quality Improvement

Inconsistent reporting and poor product quality are two things you don’t want to see in your business. It harms your business reputation and decreases customer trust in your brand. Knowing how to build a cloud-based SaaS application puts you in a better position when it comes to securing and accessing your critical business information. Cloud solutions enable you to maintain data consistency across all systems, minimize human errors, and maintain a better record of revisions or updates in your system.

9. Smart Data Insights

When using cloud-based solutions, you can realize the benefits of having huge data information about your potential clients, customers, and business partners. Exploring valuable, rich information hidden among millions of customer transactions, business processes, and demographics details allows you to build solutions that address customer problems quicker. Of course, analyzing such large chunks of information requires you to leverage the benefits of cloud computing solutions.

10. Competitive Advantage

Not every company today is ready to switch to cloud computing infrastructure for running their business process due to the upfront costs. But, enterprises or startups that take such risks are always ahead of the market competition when it comes to enterprise security, revenue, service delivery, and production capability. By using cloud solutions, you can ditch many of the problems inherent with on-premise infrastructure or solutions.

To Sum it up!!

As we move ever further into the digital age, it’s becoming clearer that the adage “knowledge is power” has taken on the more modern and accurate form: “Data is money.” The adoption of cloud computing is increasing every year. By adopting cloud computing services, an enterprise can maximize the return on the investment. It is indispensable at all levels in our “online lives.” If you are a Startup or SME, along with saving your time and money, it helps you to face the competitions from counterparts or large enterprises. Cloud computing development services have tremendously increased the demand for app development companies, who know how to work with this technology.

Industry experts believe that cloud computing will continue to benefit mid-sized and large companies in the coming few years. With these benefits, it is just even more evident that the future of cloud computing holds great potential. It may open a wide range of opportunities for new employment, platforms, and much more in the future.