Why small businesses should adopt the cloud.

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It offers more flexibility

A lot of businesses have on-premise servers to host their applications, website or internal systems. There are definite benefits of having your own on-premise data center, but there are also some drawbacks. Probably the biggest is hardware utilization. It is hard to scale up or down when you own the hardware, and any upgrade requires a significant capital outlay for infrastructure. It also requires technical expertise and – depending on your infrastructure – one or more system administrators to manage it.
This is where moving to the cloud starts making sense. When using cloud services, you can easily scale up the cloud capacity, as you only pay for the infrastructure that you actually use. On the other hand, you can also scale down your business as needed. It provides a high level of flexibility while enhancing operational efficiency.

Data in the cloud

Loss of data can create a massive negative impact on your small business. Setting up your own backup infrastructure and system can be quite a complicated task – especially if you want to follow the 3-2-1 rule of 3 backups / 2 mediums / 1 off-site. This is the ideal setup, but in reality very few companies actually manage to get this formula in practice. If you don’t want to take any such risk, you may consider switching to cloud storage. Cloud providers usually have multiple data centers to mirror your data and apps. Although rare, system failures can occasionally wipe out your data. In such cases, redundancy in cloud computing can help ensure you don’t lose your data. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about backing up your data manually. In case of a disaster, you will just need to proceed with restoring your data from the backup. This fact is verified because around 50% of corporate data is stored in the cloud.

Technically, it is cheaper.

A significant benefit of cloud computing is that it requires no initial capital outlay from your side. Your cloud provider already has all the infrastructure ready for use. So from a corporate point of view this is an easy decision as the cost vs time to market is significantly less than setting up and managing your own infrastructure. The only requirement from your side is that you sign up with a cloud provider and start moving your data an apps to the cloud.

Cloud = work from anywhere

When you start using cloud computing technologies, you will be able to start working from anywhere. For example, you will not be restricted to the device that you have in hand. Instead, you can connect to the cloud services via the internet and get a hold of all applications running on it. You should switch to cloud computing if your small business wishes to deliver more flexibility to employees.

It offers enterprise-level IT security.

Enterprise-level IT security is a major challenge for most businesses. The risk is even more when you are managing your own infrastructure, as companies do not always have the budget to employ security specialists. Cloud providers on the other hand employs large teams of network and security engineers to ensure security of the cloud. The cloud computing services provider is responsible for monitoring the security of the cloud 24×7. As a result, you can keep peace of mind and stop worrying about threats that exist out there on the internet.

Cloud computing can help your business get a competitive edge.

Last but not least, cloud technology can assist your business in gaining a competitive edge over similar businesses in the industry. According to a recent study, it was identified that around 75% of the customers expect their companies to use the latest available technologies to deliver better experiences to them. If you can offer such a great experience to your customers, you will be able to attract their attention. Hence, you can continue to build a strong, loyal customer base, which will benefit your business.

There are many options.

There are many cloud computing providers, with their own products and services on offer. However, not every application or software is always 100% cloud compatible. The alternative then is to move your on-premise data center to the cloud by hosting your current infrastructure on Dedicated Servers or VPS Servers hosted by your cloud provider. In a lot of ways this has all the benefits of cloud computing, but with the familiarity of on-premise computing.

Sleuth

Sleuth has over 15 years experience in the hosted and cloud environment.

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