Maybe you’re considering moving your business’s infrastructure to the cloud, but you’ve wondered what the benefits are. One of the most touted cloud benefits is its potential cost savings. However, cost benefits of the cloud are often all in how you use them.
If you switch to a cloud infrastructure but you’re still running operations from a physical data center with few virtual machines and little automation, you won’t see many reduced costs. But if you take advantage of cloud services’ automation capabilities and reduce how much hardware you have, you may see some savings. Cost savings are not the only benefit of switching to the cloud, though. Here are some other cloud computing benefits, including storage and development.
Multiple Cloud Infrastructure Options
Public Cloud Options
When you decide to move to the cloud, you have different options for structuring your cloud. You may want to use a public cloud service provider, like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. These cloud services let you rent space through a pay-per-service system, and they offer a wide variety of features and options for security and application development. The cloud storage and development space and features you rent from the service provider are scalable, so you can add or remove them as your business demands.
Private Cloud Options
You may prefer a private cloud, where you can use cloud options and features on your business’s network. A managed IT services company can help you build one for your private network.
Hybrid Cloud Options
If you want both types of cloud infrastructure, you can adopt a hybrid cloud system, which integrates a public cloud with a private cloud by creating parallel environments in which applications can move between the private cloud and the public one. This is a great option if you have different applications and sections of data you’d like to keep separate.
Cloud Options for Software Development
If your business employs web and software developers who need space to create applications, the cloud is a great place for them to do that. Your other employees may use software as a service (SaaS) (such as Microsoft Office 365 and Salesforce) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) (such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon) applications. Meanwhile, your developers may use two types of cloud services that are made specifically for software and application development.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) Applications
Platform as a service (PaaS) applications, such as Salesforce’s Heroku and Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry, provide cloud environments where developers can create, test, and deploy applications, and then manage and update them as needed. PaaS applications also allow developers to run analytics and business intelligence while reducing coding time. Also, some public cloud providers offer options that allow developers to create applications for multiple devices in PaaS spaces.
Functions as a Service (FaaS) Applications
The second cloud service for developers is functions as a service (FaaS). FaaS applications (such as Azure Functions and Google Cloud Functions) separates the code from other functions and applications the developer works with. Put simply, FaaS is the cloud version of serverless computing.
These developer tools can give your business web and software development opportunities that they may not have access to on a non-cloud network infrastructure.
Security Options
One of the advantages of cloud computing is public providers offer security measures that include encryption, authentication, and access control. These are scalable, and you can implement security features as your business needs them. This gives you an amount of control you might not have if you use non-cloud software that comes with preset security features.
Long Island IT Support
If you think your Long Island or New York City business is ready to move to the cloud, contact us today. We work with cloud service providers that include Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, and we can help you set up your cloud services for storage and computing.
