According to Gartner, enterprise worldwide IT spending will grow 6.2% to $3.9 trillion in 2021. Most of this spending will go towards IT modernization and digital transformation efforts, like enabling cloud computing. This growth is in response to the negative impact on IT spending in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As businesses adjust to the new world, using the cloud to support remote workers and provide a better customer experience is vital.
This trend suggests we’re fast approaching an era in which Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) becomes the norm. But if you’re still not sure if a cloud infrastructure is right for your business, here are nine reasons our customers choose cloud computing. We’ve even thrown in a few tips and resources that can help you maximize your return.
Why cloud computing is top of mind for businesses
1. Cost-effectiveness
Virtualized resources remove the capital expense of procuring and maintaining equipment, as well as the expense of maintaining an on-premises data center.
In addition, cloud computing services deliver economies of scale and expertise for a faster return on investment (ROI). For example, did you know that data centers already consume more than 2% of the electricity consumed in the US? All of that power requires significant cooling. Larger data center operators have the bandwidth to invest in high-efficiency cooling systems that reduce power consumption and costs.
Also read: Six Tips for Controlling Cloud Spend in a Migration
2. Speed to market
These days, almost every organization is doing some sort of software development designed to enhance market position. Cloud computing allows the organization to quickly provision resources for development and testing across a number of different types of environments.
Once these applications are ready for rollout, developers can quickly transition code to a live production environment for a smoother product launch. Because these environments are highly scalable (see Reason #3), the organization doesn’t need to worry about inaccurately estimating capacity requirements for their cloud-based applications.
Working with a managed service provider like TierPoint to manage your live environment can also help you maximize uptime and performance for greater customer satisfaction. And while we’re focusing on your infrastructure, you can be focusing on creating killer cloud applications for your customers.
3. Scalability
Estimating data center capacity requirements is one of the most difficult tasks an IT leader faces. Overestimate and you end up sinking capital into capacity you don’t need. Underestimate and you end up crippling the business’s ability to respond to opportunity.
Cloud computing resources (compute, cloud storage, and network bandwidth) can be scaled up, down, or off to meet your current needs. Public clouds like AWS and Azure even provide for elastic computing, which automatically expands compute and storage to fit unanticipated capacity requirements.
4. Increased productivity
When your team doesn’t need to spend time maintaining equipment, they can focus on higher-value add activities like IT security and data analytics. Combining cloud computing with managed services gives your team bandwidth to work on other revenue-generating projects instead of day-to-day tasks.
Also read: What Are the Different Cloud Platforms (Public, Private, and Hybrid) and How Do They Work?
5. Innovation
Have a project on your to-do list that you never seem to get to because you’re too busy managing your infrastructure and fighting fires? By offloading infrastructure management and other time-consuming tasks to a managed service provider like TierPoint, your team can focus on the innovations that drive the business forward.
6. Improved performance
High-performance computing, faster internet connectivity, and local edge computing are among the many ways cloud computing reduces latency and improves performance.
Data center hardware and software can also quickly become obsolete, but many organizations try to get every last dollar they can out of their investment before they upgrade. Third-party data center providers typically follow a hardware refresh cycle that is far shorter than that practiced by on-premises data center operators. Newer hardware frequently means higher performance.
7. Data and cloud security
Third-party cloud providers have the bandwidth to focus on IT security 24/7/365. We’ve got our eye on emerging threats and the technologies used to combat them. We also have the resources to hire high-demand cloud security professionals and the expertise to implement best-practice controls and policies for cloud security.
Most on-premises data center operators can’t afford to expend this kind of effort on their in-house IT security efforts. Read our Strategic Guide to IT Security to learn more about cybersecurity and IT security fundamentals.
8. Availability
If you’re managing an on-premises data center, chances are you vividly remember the last time you experienced planned or unplanned downtime. It was likely not a walk in the park. Well-established third-party cloud providers have the resources to invest in redundant infrastructure, UPS systems, environmental controls, network carriers, power sources, etc., to ensure maximum uptime.
9. Resiliency
Before cloud computing, enterprises needed to invest in redundant infrastructure to protect themselves in the event of a disaster. Cloud computing makes disaster recovery far more cost-efficient and effective by enabling replication and failover to an alternate location in the cloud.
Cloud computing also gives you the flexibility to choose the failover location and model that optimizes your RTO (recovery time objectives) and RPO (recovery point objectives). For example, many organizations are using the public cloud, like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, for faster, more cost-effective recovery solutions.
Unfortunately, too many organizations don’t have the time, expertise, or bandwidth to do adequate disaster recovery planning. A Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution can help ensure you have the bases covered.
Thinking of migrating to the cloud?
The benefits of cloud computing are many but maximizing the return on your investment takes careful planning. A well-thought-out cloud migration plan can minimize downtime, ensure the safety of your data in transit, and help you maintain compliance and security throughout the process.
Don’t just take our word for it, see how our customer adopted the cloud for their ERP application to improve their non-profit operations.
Are you considering a move to the cloud? We offer a cloud readiness assessment that will help you create a comprehensive roadmap for migrating your data and applications to the cloud. Sign up today.
Originally published in May 2019, this post was updated on March 29, 2021, to reflect changes in stats and add more context around the benefits of cloud computing.
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