Today’s business landscape is a volatile one. The uncertainty of Brexit continues to loom over much of Europe. The national skills shortage shows little sign of being alleviated. And compliance requirements across many industries are becoming ever more stringent.
Given these challenges, anything that can help a business futureproof its operations and encourage growth is something to be welcomed. Today, the opportunity to do that is most likely to be found in tech – particularly cloud.
Cloud growth
Over the last few years, cloud has quickly gone from hype to reality. According to IDC, global spending on public cloud computing is expected to reach $162 billion by 2020 (attaining a 19% CAGR from $67 billion in 2015). Many analysts have noted the industry’s quicker than expected growth, citing the technology’s interwoven relationship with software tools and how it is delivering better value for businesses as the main cause.
It’s no surprise, then, that organisations across many different sectors are embracing cloud as a core part of their digital transformation strategy. And one of the first steps involves migrating to hosted data storage.
Why virtualisation works
Virtual servers are a cost effective, resilient and secure alternative to traditional on-premise dedicated servers. And using them goes hand-in-hand with the trend of using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Indeed, a recent Oracle survey found that 73% of businesses believe IaaS makes it easier for them to innovate, while 68% agree that IaaS delivers exceptional operational performance with regard to speed and availability.
The rationale for virtualisation is simple: remove the burden of managing and maintaining underlying physical hardware and reap plenty of rewards, including:
Flexibility
A cloud platform means infrastructure can be easily scaled up and down as needed. This keeps a business able to cope with fluctuations in seasonal demand, and agile enough to deal with any unexpected changes.
Resilience
The best cloud-hosted IT infrastructure service is designed by specialist networks with expert security and resilience in mind. This means firewalls and VPN connectivity by default. Just one less thing for the IT team to worry about.
Cost savings
With cloud computing, there’s only one fixed monthly fee. Server, storage and firewall costs are all paid for as you go, with no need for costly up-front investment.
Convenience
Because security and resilience are built-in into the service, IT teams can focus on more strategic issues, rather than spending time keeping the lights on.
By adopting a cloud model, employees have choice over their applications and tools from a drastically widened choice of locations and devices. The door is opened to more flexible, agile business models, and businesses only need to pay for the infrastructure they use. Secure access to information is made available for roaming workers, documents are more easily edited and shared, and collaboration is seamless. Most importantly, IT staff have more time to focus their skills on tasks that add real value to your business.
Read our eGuide, ‘Staying Competitive in the Digital Age’ to learn more.
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