One of the more interesting promises of cloud technology is the agility added to business operations. In today’s fast-paced world, a company that can make changes quickly, as needed, carries a competitive advantage. How does managed cloud technology enable that?
Right-Size Your IT Environment
In a virtual (cloud) environment, computing resources can be purchased to precisely match a company’s needs. Since a business’s need for IT resources can change for a variety of reasons (seasonal business cycles, or company growth, for example), the old paradigm would have been to purchase on-premises IT to match the anticipated maximum need. With cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), a company can add or subtract things as needed to match the circumstances. CPU, RAM, disk space can be easily adjusted for need.
Agile Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Not only can existing cloud infrastructure be adjusted quickly; whole new assets can also be deployed, and this can be instrumental in a quick recovery from a crashed server, assuming the IT infrastructure has image backups. In this scenario, a new virtual server can be created from backed-up images and shorten the time to recovery. This would work in many virtual environments (it doesn’t have to be in the cloud), but cloud-based solutions also offer rapid recovery when a company’s on-premise environment is affected by the disaster. Moreover, it’s possible to create a cloud-based version of the entire IT infrastructure and enable a business to resume operations quickly, even when their brick-and-mortar location is unavailable.
Access from Anywhere
More and more, workers are expecting to be able to do their jobs from a variety of locations, not just from the company’s office. Having even some of a company’s IT infrastructure in a managed cloud can make a mobile workforce more productive, more collaborative and more connected.
These are general benefits we’ve outlined. Every business and every environment is different. Careful planning is required to reap these benefits while preserving productivity and network security. But competitive edge is very important, so managed cloud computing is a solution worth investigating.
Clare Computer Solutions has helped companies get into cloud computing and sometimes out of cloud computing, depending on the needs and circumstances of the client. We can help you determine which part of your company’s IT infrastructure would benefit from cloud technology. It all starts with a conversation. Contact us today to get started!
