Is cloud computing all that it’s cracked up to be and is there really a business benefit to it, or are you just paying for the privilege of using someone else’s computer? We’ll be covering some real-world examples of how small and medium-size businesses are benefiting from cloud computing.
In addition, you’ll hear how one company has utilised the cloud to their benefit and the story behind why they don’t own any large and costly physical server infrastructure.
The Road Warriors & Home Workers
Probably the biggest players to benefit from cloud computing are employees on the move and those working from home. With a stable internet connection, they’ve got access to their email across multiple devices, laptop, tablet and smartphone. All of which are easy to set up and access if you are on the right cloud service for email.
The big two are Office 365, from Microsoft and G-Suite, from Google. Both have integrated their email platform into favorite email clients such as Outlook and smartphone devices running iOS or Android. In contrast, before these cloud services were readily available email on the move was not plain sailing. Tasks such as entering the correct Exchange server login details had to be precise and varied with whoever set up your in-house server. If you were still relying on a POP/IMAP email service, then it was hit or miss if everything was synced up across all your devices.
The cloud has changed this for the better. Take a look at our full range of cloud services here.
The IT Department
One of the biggest winners in cloud computing is the in-house IT department or managed service provider. Why is this? The cloud makes life a lot easier. We’ve already covered email in the cloud but from an IT manager or service provider’s perspective, this is a huge responsibility that has now been taken out of their hands.
Personally talking, I remember the days when if your Exchange email server ran out of space or service stopped working it was literally all hands on deck. With Office 365 exchange online services or G-Suite, this is just not the case.
Yes, you may have service interruptions from both Google or Microsoft. However, the downtime is minimal, and the business is not having to pay the correctly experienced IT professional to “be there” in case the exchange server falls over.
Other cloud services that change the IT manager’s life include tools such as RMM which is a remote monitoring and management tool. This compromises of a small piece of software that are installed on all desktops, laptops and servers. It proactively monitors all the machines in the company and reports on possible issues. Inbuilt to such tools is also the ability to take control of any device that has an internet connection. This allows IT companies and departments to fix and work on issues without having to leave the comfort of their desk. This has totally changed the way that IT professionals now work when it comes to system administration and IT support.
Developers
Laastly on the list are software developers. It’s a growing industry and costs have been reduced dramatically by cloud computing for developers due to services such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS. Both these services allow developers to build test environments for their software solutions with no physical hardware requirement.
Back before these services existed, developers would have to invest thousands of capital on server hardware purchases and connectivity. A great example of just how flexible and scalable services such as Amazon AWS are companies like AirBnB. They own no physical hardware. The entire operation is based on the Amazon AWS platform. See here for the full story on how AirBnB grew using Amazon AWS by clicking here.
This has obviously benefited many large-scale operations but small and medium business can also benefit from Azure & AWS. Business ventures which would usually require capital investment to host software or an application can now “on demand” with setup taking only a couple of hours instead of a 2-3 month project.
We’ve only just scratched the surface with this post.
If you want to find out what other ways the cloud can benefit your business, then let’s start a discussion. You can find our contact details on our contact us page which is linked here.