Advantages of Cloud Computing

For start-up businesses the cloud offers an essential differentiator. For the first time, anyone with an idea can start a business and get it up and running quickly on an enterprise-grade IT infrastructure that’s flexible enough to accommodate growth, yet requires minimal up-front capital expenditure.

For small to medium sized businesses that have limited IT resources, the cloud allows you to focus on running your business rather than your IT. You can take advantage of a wide portfolio of compute, storage and network products, then cost effectively scale on-demand as your business grows — often while delivering faster time to market than previously achievable.

Mid to large enterprises often face complex hosting needs, varying departmental and corporate-wide infrastructure requirements, high traffic websites and demanding applications. For them, the cloud can often drive down costs and deliver increased operational efficiency, productivity, agility and flexibility.

Advantages of Cloud Computing at a Glance:
Drive down costs: Avoid large capital expenditure on hardware and upgrades. Cloud can also improve cost efficiency by more closely matching your cost pattern to your revenue/demand pattern,  moving your business from a capital-intensive cost model to an Opex model.
Cope with demand: You know what infrastructure you need today, but what about your future requirements? As your business grows, a cloud environment should grow with you. And when demand is unpredictable or you need to test a new application, you have the ability spin capacity up or down, while paying only for what you use.
Run your business; don’t worry about your IT: Monitoring your infrastructure 24/7 is time consuming and expensive when you have a business to run. A managed cloud solution means that your hosting provider is doing this for you. In addition to monitoring your infrastructure and keeping your data safe, they can provide creative and practical solutions to your needs, as well as expert advice to keep your IT infrastructure working efficiently as your needs evolve.
Innovate and lead: Ever-changing business requirements mean that your IT infrastructure has to be flexible. With a cloud infrastructure, you can rapidly deploy new projects and take them live quickly, keeping you at the vanguard of innovation in your sector.
Improved security and compliance: You have to protect your business against loss of revenue and brand damage. In addition, many organizations face strict regulatory and compliance obligations. A cloud environment means that this responsibility no longer rests entirely on your shoulders. Your cloud hosting provider will build in resiliency and agility at an infrastructure-level to limit the risk of a security breach, and will work with you to help address compliance and regulatory requirements.
Reduce your carbon footprint: Hosting in a data center rather than onsite allows you to take advantage of the latest energy-efficient technology. Additionally, as cloud service providers host multiple customers on shared infrastructure, they can drive higher and more efficient utilization of energy resources.
Future-proof your business: There is unprecedented demand for access to data anywhere, any time and on any device. Don’t let your business fall behind. By embracing the cloud, you can handle emerging mobile, BYOD and wearable technology trends.
However, in order to make an informed choice about whether the cloud is right for your business, you might also want to take into consideration some disadvantages of cloud computing.

For instance, it would be untrue to claim that the cloud is right for every IT infrastructure task. If your business needs to run an old application that was designed to run on dedicated servers, then moving it into the cloud could be difficult. Indeed, many older enterprise-type applications are best left on dedicated gear. Likewise, if you have very high security requirements, then a dedicated server environment offers the very highest levels of compliance.

And finally if your business has stable levels of demand that mean all servers need to run 24/7/365, it’s likely you can get the same compute-power for cheaper using a dedicated server
But these disadvantages can be overcome, and you no longer need to compromise and weigh up the pros and cons of cloud computing over a traditional dedicated solution.

The hybrid cloud is a real game changer, allowing you to combine public cloud with private cloud or dedicated hosting and leverage the best of what each has to offer to meet your needs.

Use the public cloud for non-sensitive operations, the private cloud for business-critical operations, and incorporate any existing dedicated resources to achieve a highly flexible, highly agile and highly cost-effective solution.

If you would like to find out more about cloud computing advantages and disadvantages we are here to help. Our team will provide no-nonsense answers to any questions you have and will help you work out the best solution for your business.