50 Resources to help you grow your small business during the COVID-19 pandemic
2020 is the year of cloud services. In fact, it is expected that cloud data centers will process 94% of workloads in 2021, being cost optimization the primary reason for 47% of enterprises’ to move to the cloud.
But as the cloud gets more and more complex, it is sometimes harder to identify the exact points where your business can save money by making the decision to migrate.
In this article, we’ll analyze the exact ways cloud migration can lower your costs, help you scale faster and the main benefit you need to take into account before the migration.
What is the cloud?
The cloud is a simplified name that was given to the conjunction of functionalities, infrastructure, and processing that takes place on the internet.
In most network diagrams, the focus was on the hardware that the end-user was going to interact with, while the internet side of things was represented by a simple cloud.
Another term used when referring to the cloud is cloud computing.
Nowadays, the term cloud is used in three different categories:
- SaaS or software as a service.
- PaaS or platform as a service.
- IaaS or infrastructure as a service.
Those are the three building blocks that form the cloud stack that we have come to love and that has made our workstyle possible.
Related article: What is a cloud service by McAfee.
7 Real ways small businesses can save money by moving to the cloud
In our article The Cloud Migration Roadmap: the complete guide for business owners, we discussed the most common benefits you’ll gain when migrating to the cloud. One of them was reducing IT costs.
This time, we want to focus more on the exact way it helps you lower the costs and the added value of running your processes directly on the cloud.
- There’s no need for upfront investment in hardware
- Reduces software investment
- Cloud computing reduces energy consumption
- Vendors have your IT human resources cover
- You can eliminate redundancies
- It is a pay-as-you-go model
- Reduces security costs
1 – There’s no need for upfront investment in hardware
Running your own servers means that you need to buy the hardware you’ll be using, the place or space where all your equipment will be running and take care of the management and maintenance of it.
When you calculate the numbers, the overall cost can get pretty high, really fast.
Working with a cloud provider will save you all the upfront investment as the vendor is the one taking care of these expenses.
On the other hand, this benefit can only be obtained when you move to a Public Cloud.
2 – Reduces software investment
Just like with hardware, when your applications run in the cloud you have access to all updates, upgrades, and access to them from wherever you need them, with nearly no upfront investment.
Instead, you’ll be charged a monthly fee that keeps consistent – in most cases – for the entirety of the lifetime of the application.
3 – Cloud computing reduces energy consumption costs
Something that most business owners don’t take into account is the amount of energy that running their own servers actually represents.
And oh boy that bill gets high!
After all, you’ll be running these servers 24/7 to avoid downtimes that, in most cases, make you lose customers.
The good news is that when you move to the Public Cloud through a vendor like Digisoft Cloud, you don’t need to think in these hidden costs, no one talks about.
Related article: The hidden costs of On-Premise hosting by LBMC
4 – Vendors have your IT human resources cover
IT professionals are expensive – and that’s for a good reason.
Most modern businesses couldn’t operate properly without a healthy IT infrastructure so it all comes down to how much does it cost you a human error?
That’s why at Digisoft Cloud we make sure to only have the best of the best engineers and consultants in the IT industry, to take care of all your cloud and IT necessities and to answer all of your questions.
Give us a call
Phone number: (702) 781 8283
5 – You can eliminate redundancies
Overstacking is a simple preventing solution to avoid downtimes when there are traffic spikes at some point down the line.
Source: CloudTP
This is one of the main reasons most businesses have decided to move to the cloud as it is nearly 100% hardware utilization, without the need to invest in equipment that may or not be used but that still needs to be running in case a spike appears.
6 – It is a pay-as-you-go model
In relation to the previous point, you’ll be paying only for the capacities that you are using at the moment but with the agility to rapidly scale your infrastructure as needed.
Not only you’ll – almost – an infinity scalability potential but also the agility to downscale and upscale as your business needs at any given time.
This is easily the most important reason you should consider moving to a cloud environment.
7 – Reduces security costs
Let’s avoid redundancies. Obviously, when you work with a cloud provider, all security is managed by the vendor’s team.
In this case, I want you to focus on the cost that a breach in your servers would represent.
When choosing a cloud provider, keep in mind that they need to be prepared with heavy security measures.
Unexpected expenditure and trade-off.
So that’s it. Cloud is perfect and you should totally trash on-premise servers, right? Well, not quite.
Working in the cloud has its pros and cons.
And like any other business decision, you need to gather all the information you need before taking that step.
Here are the 4 unexpected expenditures and trade-off that you need to know if you’re planning to move to the cloud:
Staff and training
Just like any change, you’ll need to educate your employees to use the new systems – especially if you made any tailored made changes to the applications that you migrated.
This a really important step as your system is only as efficient as is the team using it.
That’s why at Digisoft Cloud we work closely with your teams when migrating all your processes to the cloud.
Because of it, employees get comfortable with the new workflow faster and answer any question they might have during the process.
C-level training
This is more for you. It is really common for businesses to migrate to the cloud just to keep using traditional systems.
In the end, if you’re not using the new environment to move to, then you’re wasting money.
Making all C-Level members on the same page, understanding the processes and the real advantages of the cloud is key to high performance.
Loss of control
When you own the servers, you are in full control of what happens, when and how it happens, plus, you have the freedom to do any changes you desire. This is not the case when working with a vendor.
In this case, you’ll have to request the changes to your provider, negotiate and plan the deployment with its team and sometimes compromise depending on the capabilities of the vendor.
Security control
It’s true that working with a vendor will reduce security costs. However, it also means that you have to trust rely on your provider security measures.
Don’t get scared though.
Gartner assures that public cloud IaaS workloads will experience 60% fewer security incidents than traditional data centers by 2020, and that through 2022 at least 95% of security failures in the cloud will be caused by the customers.
Beyond cost savings, why should you move to the cloud?
Every time we read about cloud migration and its benefits, cost savings are always in the front of the line – it’s even the reason you’re reading this article right now.
Even though it is true that the cloud allows you to scale your businesses with less investment and expenditures, there is something that many people undervalue but where the true benefit of moving to the cloud shines: agility.
Your business’s agility is the ability to rapidly change an IT infrastructure to adapt to new business needs and opportunities.
Today’s disruptive market makes it an essential component for your business long-term survival.
The power to adapt to your market needs or to change your infrastructure to take advantage of an opportunity in a different market will give you an edge as you grow.
Before you go, let us make it more visual for you.
| Reduced spending on computing, storage, networking and security | Reuse of services and applications that allow you to define, and redefine solutions using the same cloud service |
| Avoidance of hardware and software purchases (CapEx) | Increased developer productivity |
| Reductions in operational costs, backup, and DR / DC | Improved customer’s satisfaction |
| Reduction in operations-oriented personnel | Improved employee morale based on the use of cloud-based resources |
| Ability to change business processes quickly around new and emerging opportunities | |
| Increased global reach |
Source: Cloud Economics
Making the move
If you are still in doubt about moving your business to the cloud, we prepared something that can ease the decision and help you prepare for the process.
The Cloud Migration Roadmap: the complete guide for business owners (Infographic + PDF) is a guide for every business owner that needs an in-depth analysis of how the process works.
With all that said, what do you think is the core value of moving to the cloud?
Leave your response in the comments or just leave any questions you might have. We’ll be glad to hear from you.
Ready to reduce IT costs?
Phone numbers: (702) 781 8283 | Email: info@digisoftcorp.com
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