Why Enterprises Are Flocking To The Cloud To Manage Their Computing Infrastructure

Twenty years ago, businesses housed their software applications and data storage on their premises. IT departments were responsible for installing, securing, and maintaining the technologies used by company employees. But a decade ago, that all began to change with the onset of cloud computing. Businesses quickly realized the benefits of using the cloud for hosting their applications, services, and data storage in the cloud. If you're new to the concept and benefits of the cloud, here is an overview to bring you up to speed.

What Is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing means accessing the computing resources over the internet that were typically housed on-premises in traditional computing environments. The cloud is hosted on a remote server or servers managed by a cloud platform provider. The cloud provider gives access to the cloud resources for either a monthly fee or according to usage. Cloud computing relieves IT departments of the burden of managing and maintaining applications, data storage, networking capabilities, security, and more, and typically costs less than providing those capabilities on-site.

Before cloud computing, computer users stored their data and applications either on their own computers or on their company's networked servers. With access to the cloud, users can store all their data and applications on a cloud provider's platform, which users can access from anywhere on any device with internet access. The cloud provides all the processing power rather than your computing device.

Is the Cloud Secure?

The reason some businesses or individuals are hesitant to use the cloud is the idea that the cloud is insecure. However, if you're using a modern, reputable cloud provider that uses the latest cybersecurity technologies, the cloud is no more insecure than your on-premises systems. The primary reason that businesses believe the cloud is more vulnerable to threats is that the public cloud model shares storage, applications, and other cloud services among customers. But the provider manages data security, both at rest and in transit and will heighten security by partitioning off each customer's data so that they can't mount cyberattacks on each other's data. And if a business wants to further protect highly sensitive data, they can pay to have the provider set up a private cloud, which restricts access to only authorized users.

What Are the Benefits of Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing provides many advantages over traditional on-premises computing environments. Those advantages include:

Lower costs: Cloud computing offloads much of the cost and effort of buying, installing, securing, and managing your computing infrastructure.

Improved agility: Instead of waiting weeks or months for IT to purchase, install, and roll out a requested software solution, users can immediately access enterprise applications over the internet.

Better scalability: You can scale up or down as needed without purchasing extra capacity, which could go unused during slow times.

When moving your operations to a cloud environment, it's important to understand your goals so you can choose the right solution. Make sure to have a well-thought-out plan so you can migrate to the cloud with as few disruptions as possible. It's important to consult with your cloud services provider to devise a suitable migration strategy.

Contact a service like Innovo Solutions LLC to learn more about cloud services. 

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