Bharati Suresh, Marketing Manager, Emitac Enterprise Solutions, elaborates why regional customers should look at moving to cloud-based solutions and services.
A major shift taking place today in the IT industry includes organisations moving from software-based services to cloud-based services. It is not only the need of the hour but also the future.
It is always painstakingly difficult to maintain big infrastructures for data protection and data maintenance. The costs involved for maintenance of data at the organisational level is too high. Data processing is another challenge. The flexibility in operation is restricted while migrating the data between applications, which leads to lack of productivity and ultimately results in increase of costs.
Organisations today are seeking simpler solutions that are not only cost-effective but also easy to maintain and are flexible.
Cloud services or cloud computing is thus just the right answer for all these needs.
BENEFITS OF CLOUD SERVICES
Flexibility and scalability: The flexibility of operation and capability of adapting to the ever fluctuating and growing needs of a business can be easily met by shifting to a cloud-based infrastructure. It is always easy to increase or decrease the cloud capacity based on the needs of the business. The agility of the cloud is what makes it a better option and gives you a technological edge over your competitors.
Data security and disaster recovery: Data is the utmost important asset a company has. Every firm must take a well-informed decision when it comes to its data security. Preventing a data disaster is well in the hands of the company but being prepared for an emergency is always a smart move. Cloud is the right solution. An organisation can secure all its data from theft or loss by periodic upload of data on the cloud. Irrespective of the organisation size, switching to cloud-based solutions is cost effective, reliable, secure, and fast.
Automatic updates: One of the best things about cloud is that, you don’t have to bother about the maintenance and updates. It is the service provider who is responsible for the regular updates or any needs that may arise. The service provider is also responsible for the security of the data uploaded in the cloud. As there is nothing to be taken care of on the organisation’s part in terms of infrastructure, they can invest and concentrate on their core activities.
Accessible from anywhere and everywhere: The Internet connection is all that you need to set up, after you switch to cloud with a service provider. Cloud provides an improved working experience due to flexible working conditions, better infrastructure, newer technologies and so on, bringing work life balance. A flexible working condition is more likely to be a motivating factor for an employee than just the pay rise.
Low infrastructural overheads: Infrastructural overheads or CAPEX is the biggest concern when it comes to implementing a new system and in this case, the cloud services. But, as all the setup concerns are left to the service providers, the organisation need not spend time, effort or money on it. It is a pure subscription based model and the organisation can pay as per their requirement. Hassle free and easy on budget is what makes adopting to cloud a lucrative move.
Considering all the benefits that a cloud-based infrastructure has, one must consider shifting to it. But before you do so, the feasibility check of the transition throughout and also the usability after implementation has to be thoroughly considered and understood.
As per a research, the market in the Middle East is expected to see a boom of $2.31 billion in 2016 to $7.46 billion by 2021 with an annual growth rate of around 27 percent.
TYPES OF CLOUD DEPLOYMENTS
When it comes to implementing cloud services, you need to know what kind of the deployment you want. There are three ways you can implement cloud:
Public cloud: Getting a public cloud is one of the most feasible options. A public cloud is owned by a third party, who is a cloud service provider. A cloud service provider takes care of the end-to-end cloud implementation process. All the hardware and software infrastructure needs are the responsibility of the service provider thus proving to be a cost-effective move for the organisation.
Also, the management and maintenance of the cloud is done by the service provider and thus no separate resources are required for that purpose. The public cloud, one of the most commonly used service, is expected to see a growth of around 18 percent in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in 2016.
Private cloud: As the name suggests, a private cloud is the one which privately hosts the services for an organisation. Customers can opt for a third party service provider who can host a private cloud for them. The services and infrastructure are privately maintained on the private network. A private cloud can also be physically located on the company’s data centre.
Hybrid cloud: It is one of the convenient options as you can have the public and the private cloud clubbed together. The applications and data can be shared between them as per the requirement. This gives better flexibility while working.
Once the implementation model is zeroed on, the organisation must choose the type of cloud service it wants to opt for.
TYPES OF CLOUD SERVICES
IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service): It is the most basic and commonly used cloud service. In this, you choose the complete infrastructure which includes the servers, the virtual machines, storages, networks and operating systems. You can pay as you need/use when you opt for the IaaS. With IaaS there is simplicity of operation as the organisation does not have to manage the servers. The service provider manages the complete infrastructure while the organisations uses the services. IaaS solutions reduces CAPEX while assuring a better data security and recovery. It has been projected that the highest growth will come from cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS), which is said to grow 38.4 percent in 2016.
PaaS (Platform- as-a-service): It is mainly designed to make it easy for the developers as the PaaS services are more helpful in software development. In the PaaS model the provider typically hosts the hardware and software on his own infrastructure. PaaS has seen a substantial growth of 21 percent in 2016. It helps in cutting down the coding time as you get the pre-coded application components. These help the users in rapid development of the web or mobile application.
SaaS (Software-as-a-Service): As much as 20 percent growth has been observed in the SaaS based cloud solutions. It is a widely-used platform by individuals of the organisations and the most commonly used SaaS based services include emails, calendars and such other applications used daily. It is a complete software solution that is given by the service provider which you can avail on the ‘Pay-as-you-Go’ basis. SaaS is the quickest way to mobilise your workforce as it can quickly get the app up and running. The service provider manages the hardware and software as well as he takes care of the security of the data.
Even though switching to cloud may look like a lucrative option it is imperative to have a thorough check and analysis of the requirement of the organisation before arriving at the decision of opting the right cloud service.
