Cloud technology has been around for a long time. But it was only in the past few years that it started to be cost-effective for businesses to use.
The cloud has become commonplace in business today. The growth is so fast the whole market is expected to grow in value by 17.5% during 2019.
If you’ve never used cloud technology before, you may not know all the benefits it can bring to your business. Below are eight benefits of cloud computing that you will see.
1. Scale Quickly
If you want to scale your IT infrastructure, you’re going to need to put up a sizable investment. You need to buy new computer hardware and hire more employees. You’ll be hoping that you don’t need to downsize after because then you’ve just wasted money and are then sitting on unused resources.
Scaling isn’t an issue when you use cloud technology. Instead of outlaying the upfront cost yourself, you use the resources of the cloud company. All you need to do is change your service plan.
This flexibility means you can scale your resource usage up and down whenever you need to. You’ll be able to save money and have more predictable monthly spending.
2. Better Security
There are more security risks than ever for business. Even the top companies in tech are having problems guarding against hackers. If you don’t take the proper precautions, then you risk having your business compromised.
If you try to do everything yourself, then it’s going to cost a lot of money and time. If you make use of cloud computing, you can reduce much of your risk.
Cloud companies have already gone through the process of securing their business against hackers. You can take advantage of their resources to protect your data while you work in the cloud.
3. More Mobility
The workforce has changed a lot in the past decade. Employees don’t want to be stuck at work all the time anymore. This trend has led many people to request the ability to work from home.
Even if you decide to grant this request, it can be hard to keep things organized when people don’t spend their time at the office. Cloud computing can solve this problem.
You can use cloud services to organize your business on the internet. Since your data is available online, your team only needs to have an internet connection to get what they need to work.
4. Faster Web Services
Regular web servers work well. There are drawbacks to using them, though. The biggest problem is relying on one machine to serve your content to the internet.
Your web applications are distributed across multiple servers when you use cloud computing. If there are resource problems with one machine, the load goes to another computer. This means it’s rarer to suffer performance problems when you work in the cloud.
You can also serve your application from locations closest to your website visitors. Since the physical location of the server is closer to your visitor, your webpage will load faster for them.
Look more into a VPS cloud to see how to migrate your websites today.
5. Data Recovery
Useful data is essential if you want to make smart business decisions. Unfortunately, accidents do happen. You can lose your information if you aren’t careful.
If you don’t have a backup solution, then think about signing up for a cloud backup solution. Your essential data will be backed up regularly and stored in the cloud. If you do suffer data loss, you can log into your backup service and restore your files.
If you want to protect yourself against accidental file changes, you can also take advantage of version control. This feature allows you to store previous versions of your files. If you have a record that has been changed several times, you can go back several versions to return it to the proper state.
6. Better Collaboration
If your company still emails files back and forth when working on projects, you probably have trouble keeping things organized. After all, it can be a hassle to dig through email to find the right information.
Cloud computing helps by putting all your documents and project management online. All you need to do is log into your account to find the most recent information.
These capabilities also allow you to assign and track the work of each of your team members. You’ll be able to gather metrics about your team’s productivity and make sure everyone knows what they need to be doing.
7. Control Data Access
If you store all your files on a network server at the office, you probably don’t have much in the way of file security. Anyone with enough know-how may be able to access all the company files.
Cloud computing gives you more control over your data. One of the best security practices is the principle of least privilege. You only provide your employees with access to the files that they need to do their work.
This is useful to control damage when a data breach occurs. Even if a staff member with low access suffers an attack, the hacker won’t be able to access that much information. They will need to target someone higher up in the company to get real access.
Cloud software will help you control file access so nobody can access information they shouldn’t have.
8. More Availability
Many businesses are completely reliant on the internet to function. What happens when that goes down?
If you do everything in-house, you’re going to be out of luck unless you invest in redundant systems.
Cloud services can stay online when there are problems. You won’t need to worry about the power or internet going out at your office. As long as you have internet access somewhere, you can log in and do your work.
A little work from home time may even do your team some good.
Keep These Benefits of Cloud Computing in Mind
Not every business has the funding to handle all their needs in-house. The benefits of cloud computing solve this problem. Try a cloud service today so you can start to streamline your business.
The cloud isn’t the only technology you can use to help your business. Head over to our tech section to learn what else you can use to help.
