These days, you can hardly talk about technology without discussing the Cloud. In fact, phrases like, “are you in the Cloud?”, “we use Cloud Computing”, “I’ll just save it to the Cloud”, or “my data’s safer in the Cloud” permeates many discussions that ProServeIT hears on a daily basis. But, there are still a number of organizations that we talk to who aren’t so sure about Cloud computing, and are hesitant to move to the Cloud, because they don’t fully understand what it is and what benefits it will bring to their organization.
In this blog, we explain, in plain English, exactly what the Cloud is, the benefits of the Cloud, and how you can take advantage of Cloud computing in your organization today.
What is the Cloud?
Simply put, Cloud computing is delivering computing services (like servers, databases, analytics, or networking) over the Internet. If you’re using an online service like Hotmail, Gmail, or Exchange Online to send emails, you’re using the Cloud. If your organization uses SharePoint, OneDrive, or DropBox to store your documents, you’re using the Cloud. Or, if you’re keeping track of your client base through a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system like Dynamics or Salesforce, that’s Cloud computing in action.
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What are the benefits of Cloud computing?
The Cloud, therefore, is a cost-effective, reliable, and flexible array of services that provide numerous benefits to organizations of all sizes. With Cloud computing, you can see a boost in your employee productivity, increased collaboration among your staff members, and a reduction in your IT costs.
Traditionally, many organizations would deploy on-premises solutions to host their IT environments. This meant that companies would have to deploy servers in a dedicated server room, that had to be maintained by one (or a team) of IT experts. Capital expenditures were required to get these servers up and running, and when they reached end-of-life, an organization would typically have to undergo a major project to move to new servers. With the introduction of Cloud computing, however, the need for a physical, on-premise server (or servers) and capital expenditures required for them are no longer necessary.
Top 3 benefits of moving to The Cloud:
1. See Significant Cost Reductions through Cloud Computing
Traditional servers have an average life span of 3 to 5 years before they need to be replaced. This is a huge up-front capital cost for many organizations. By moving to the Cloud, however, you simply pay as you go with a subscription-based model that is much-reduced from the capital expenditures that traditional setups require.
2. Save Time with Cloud Computing
Remember when your IT department would need to spend time maintaining your servers, installing hardware on each individual computer within your organization, or ensuring that each machine was properly secured? By moving to the Cloud, you eliminate all of these headaches. Your Cloud solutions provider is the one that takes care of everything for you – from rolling out regular software updates, to installing security updates, to maintaining the servers for you. This leaves you free to focus on more important things, like putting time and energy into growing your business.
3. Enjoy Increased Flexibility with the Cloud
Switching to the Cloud provides you with an opportunity to embrace a much more flexible environment. With Cloud, you can introduce new technology into your workplace at a greatly reduced price, which will allow you to “dip your toes in the water”, without having to shell out large amounts of money to do it. Agility is the new buzz-word when it comes to Cloud – if you want to try out a new solution for your organization, just flip the switch and try it out for a few months. If the solution doesn’t fit, simply turn it off.
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Okay, I want to take advantage of Cloud. What’s next?
Like what you’ve read so far and interested in how you can get started using Cloud in your organization? Working with an experienced partner will ensure a seamless migration to the Cloud for your organization. For those organizations who are new to the Cloud, ProServeIT offers a pilot program so that they can see if it is the right fit. Take advantage of our Email Pilot Migration program to move a pilot group of 50 users to Office 365 (i.e. move the first 50 mailboxes from your existing environment to the Cloud). This will help you enjoy the Cloud benefits and determine if you want to migrate more of your workload to the Cloud. Contact us today!
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