Cloud computing is on the rise right now.

According to RightScale’s “Cloud Computing Trends: 2018 State of the Cloud” survey, 96% of 997 surveyed IT professionals reported that their organizations use the cloud in one form or another.

Specifically:

92% rely on the public cloud computing (up from 89% in 2017)

75% use the private cloud (in comparison to 72% reported in 2017)

It is also worth noting that:

81% of enterprises bank on a multi-cloud strategy

51% of enterprises opt for a hybrid cloud strategy (58% in 2017)

38% of the surveyed reported that the public cloud is a top priority for their business in 2018 (only 29% in 2017)

What these stats basically mean is, the benefits of cloud computing are apparent to the overwhelming majority of business owners. Otherwise, cloud penetration rate — and expectations — would not be that high.

However, there are cloud non-believers whose buy-in may be hard to gain to get things off the ground.

In this article, I am going to make a case for the cloud computing and the specific cloud computing features that can make any executive change their mind about cloud implementation.

Let’s dig into it!

1. Accessibility & Compatibility

Cloud allows you and your employees to work from anywhere. You can manage infrastructure, software, and data from any location and using any device you want.

This basically means several things:

Employees can work away from the office, which increases productivity long-term and positively influences their work-life balance

Instant access to the data from any location facilitates collaboration, which improves the natural flow of information from one employee to another and reduces the number of handoffs

Your customers are not restricted as well and can access your applications and software on any platform and on any device.

Cloud’s compatibility features are amazing. You can launch apps across multiple platforms without having to adapt your entire infrastructure and change the environment configurations. Your apps become more accessible and more reliable, too.

Business capabilities are kept in the network and are available to the employees on demand.

2. Scalability & Elasticity

In comparison to its alternatives, cloud computing is cost-efficient (though, some argue against it).

The reality is:

The cloud is flexible and easily scalable. It excels at scaling up or down capacity without friction, and it may (or may not) help your business save money.

Here is how it works:

If your applications require more resources to operate smoothly and flawlessly, the cloud will scale up to avoid downtime and slower performance. Likewise, it will scale down to cut redundant capacity.

It spreads the resources across servers as needed to cover peak loads and ensure optimal performance of your software.

That being said, the cloud allows you to manage the IT capabilities at hand more efficiently because you are not concerned with hardware, servers, utility and maintenance fees, but rely on the cloud’s autoscaling capabilities.

Note: In the cloud, the usage of resources is diligently monitored and reported. You get regular reports regarding bandwidth, storage, processing, active users, and other useful metrics.

3. Cloud Self-Service

The cloud allows any business to go global in minutes.

Cloud computing can be utilized for any type of workloads, with barely unlimited automatically provisioned infrastructure on demand. In the cloud, you do not have to interact with third-party service provider to get additional resources (e.g., computing power, networks, storage, etc.)

You do not have to do any heavy lifting to maintain your cloud operations as well. Once the system is in place, any application can be obtained, configured, and deployed without having to reach out to the service provider.

Given that, any application can be up and running in days.

Cloud vendors (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, and Alibaba) offer turnkey templates that your IT folks can use to kick off the shift to the cloud.

Your IT guys do not have to come up with their own solutions. Just download the configuration, and that’s it.

4. Hassle-Free Server Maintenance

The gist here is:

All of your servers are offsite, and you do not have to take care of them. Software updates are not your thing as well. End of story.

However, to have zero problems with server maintenance, first and foremost you need to:

Select the right cloud model (in this case, the cloud is your option)

Come up with a security strategy in advance (consider DevSecOps)

Have a backup plan to ensure flexibility

Segment workloads (i.e., keep sensitive data in multiple locations)

Keep yourself updated with your provider’s service policy

5. Virtualization

Virtualization is probably the most important feature of cloud computing.

It enables you to create virtual versions of your applications, which can be conveniently moved from one cloud to another, or from the cloud to your on-premise data center.

Basically, what virtualization does is, it provides cloud infrastructure as a service (Cloud IaaS), which by itself resolves plenty of issues.

Cloud makes your software capability more accessible by default. It provides you with virtual access to its resources like network, storage, CPU, and so on.

6. Backups & DR

Cloud-based backups can make a difference for your enterprise.

To begin with, let’s lay out a few facts about cloud backups here:

You spend less time on managing backups

You invest less in servers, since you do not have to keep your backup files

You do not need to hire a third-party to set up and manage backups

Simply put, you cut the number or totally get rid of servers to store backup files. Thus, you reduce maintenance fees and lower total expense.

Should any data get lost or corrupted, its backup file will be put in place immediately.

Data in the cloud is stored across multiple servers. In combination with the cloud’s top-tier security features, this naturally protects your business from data breaches, data theft, and other malicious behavior.

Conclusion

More and more businesses harness the power of cloud computing.

Benefits of cloud computing are apparent. It generates powerful business outcomes — higher ROI driven by more efficient operations, fewer resources needed to maintain the infrastructure, and reduced total cost of ownership.

Either they opt for a private, public, or hybrid cloud solution, they invest their resources into a visionary technology that helps them address external and internal business challenges and overcome significant technological barriers, such as slow time-to-market, inefficient collaboration, lack of process automation, and inefficient in-house software management.

Ready to move to the cloud? If you need help with your cloud transition, feel free to reach out to Squadex cloud professionals here.