Cloud solutions have become a part of the companies’ infrastructure. Firms have already appreciated their advantages. They are high performance, simple scalability, and most importantly, a significant reduction in costs. The cloud is most often chosen by small and medium-sized businesses in Los Angeles. Therefore, it uses cloud technologies as an alternative. Let’s see if such a solution is really necessary in companies and what advantages it has.
What are cloud services?
Cloud services, or “clouds”, is a network of powerful computer servers that allow customers to use their resources over the Internet: store files and share them, work in online offices, perform calculations.
In a narrow sense, cloud services are online programs that help to organize remote work and solve business problems. Employees get access to a shared database from anywhere in the world and can manage projects. Each employee sees the result in real time, can make comments, edits and perform personal or joint tasks. An example of a cloud service is Google Docs.
Cloud services are replacing the classic “boxed” offline programs that are installed on individual computers. An example of a “box” is Microsoft Office.
A cloud network consists of information storage nodes, which are called data centers. These are entire buildings filled with huge cabinets with server equipment. They are located all over the world and are connected via the Internet. Cloud providers build and maintain equipment. They also distribute the resources of the “iron” servers to separate virtual machines and rent them out. Users connect to cloud servers via the Internet and use them to send and receive information, use programs and other online tools for work.
Many small and medium-sized business owners do not fully understand why they need to use the cloud and what is the difference from the physical IT infrastructure. It is important to understand here that cloud IT services can often offer a unique set of tools and applications that are simply not available on physical hardware.
Arguments for the Cloud IT Services
Fast scalability.
This factor is critical for small and medium-sized businesses associated with online commerce. For example, during the peaks of user activity, there is a risk that the site will not cope with the loads, which means that the company will incur large losses. Due to the cloud, it is possible to increase or decrease the performance of the infrastructure at any time, thereby preventing the site from falling.
Entrusted Infrastructure Administration
Infrastructure administration in the cloud can be entrusted to the provider, avoiding unnecessary costs for an IT specialist. This is more profitable than hiring a separate employee to solve such tasks.
Versality
Cloud technologies, after all, can be chosen due to their versatility. Such a system can be adapted to any project, it is enough to choose individual settings, select programs and applications, adjust performance, etc. There is a possibility of backup and quick recovery of files if necessary.
Planning cost in advance
Using the cloud allows you to plan infrastructure costs in advance. This helps to optimize the company’s budget, avoid spontaneous spending and predict an increase in costs in the future.
Revision of the program for business tasks.
The cloud infrastructure needs to be constantly adjusted to current tasks. For example, if a company’s sales business process changes, it needs to be rebuilt in the CRM system as well. That is, it is not enough to implement the service once, you need to accompany it. The systems are maintained by the same companies as their implementation.