Cloud Computing in Business

• According to Cisco, cloud data centers will process 94% of workloads in 2021
• With the cloud, you can use your precious hard drive space for other software and leave the others to cloud
• According to Sysgroup, the ability to work outside the office makes companies more global and connected. That’s why 42% of them say providing access to data anytime, anywhere, is the main driver for cloud adoption

Technology has acted as a blessing to many businesses. From inventing spreadsheets and power-point to video conferencing, it has not failed in easing the work of the employees, the managers and the businessmen. But, with the passage of time, technology needs to up their game. This is where the cloud computing comes into play.

For some of us, it might not be a new term but for those who are new to this, cloud computing is storing and accessing programs and data on the internet rather than on your own hard drive. Cloud computing trends show year-over-year growth, ever since it was introduced. Eventually, at some point in the near future, traditional data centers will be obsolete. According to Cisco,cloud data centers will process 94% of workloads in 2021.

Let’s take an everyday example. When you take a picture on your phone and can access it on your laptop or someone else’s smartphone through Google Drive or Apple ID, how is this possible? Because the pictures you take on your smartphone live on the cloud (your selected service provider’s network). Of course, you can download a picture on your hard drive, but with the cloud, you don’t have to. With the cloud, you can use your precious hard drive space for other software and leave the others to cloud.

Looking at cloud computing from the business perspective, why does businesses decide to adopt a cloud service? Although saving money is a good incentive, it’s not the main reason. We live in an age of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) workers and flexible working hours. The ability to work outside the office makes companies more global and connected. That’s why 42% of them say providing access to data anytime, anywhere, is the main driver for cloud adoption. According to Sysgroup, Disaster recovery (38%), flexibility (37%), and relieving IT staff’s job (36%) are amongst the top answers as well.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Here, we can clearly see the benefits of cloud computing for a business. It can stimulate flexibility in the work including the working hours and work-from-home which helps in motivating the employees. Moreover, any businesses would want new technologies that offers value for money and a good return on investment.

Cloud computing helps in just that as the businesses do not need their own hardware as everything is hosted on the provider’s servers. This means savings can be made on the cost of hardware and, in addition, one can dispense with the costs of running your own data center. Miscellaneous expenses that come with operating hardware including rent for the space to store hardware, electrical power, physical security, insurance and air-conditioning or need to cover the costs of ongoing maintenance.

Furthermore, cloud hosting removes the possibility of server failure causing downtime. A cloud environment is engineered to deliver predictable and consistent performance with guaranteed 100% uptime. This is because clients are hosted on virtual machines that, in the event of an issue, can be migrated between the clustered server. The cloud’s hyper-converged design guards against everything from hard disk failure to an entire server failure, enabling mission-critical applications to be available all the time.

Ebay using Google cloud platform

Taking eBay as an example, people who use eBay expect the bidding site to give reliable performance and show them listings for almost anything imaginable. If the site crashes at a time-sensitive moment, people could miss opportunities to place winning bids for the things they want most. So, when eBay moved its marketplace of more than a billion listings, the company recognized the task as a substantial undertaking.

However, with the help of a team of engineers, it accomplished the transition to Google’s cloud platform in five months. That feat got to a production-ready stage so quickly that eBay found itself six months ahead of schedule. Moreover, eBay could assess using Google’s services in numerous places around the world, including those outside of North America. In 2018, eBay started using Google’s cloud option in a different way by testing machine learning algorithms that assist with image recognition. One machine learning task with a 40-day completion time using eBay’s in-house systems required only four days with Google’s help.

As a consumer, businesses must weigh both the pros and cons of cloud computing prior to making a purchase decision because, like all great technology, cloud services come with a few downsides. With cloud computing, businesses are essentially trusting another party to take care of their data. They are trusting that the party will maintain their data centers and servers with the same care as a business would, if not more. They have to trust that the provider’s data centers are compliant and secured both physically and online.

Trust and security go hand in hand in case of cloud computing. In addition to the trust, cloud hacking cases as recent as the past few months have shown that not all cloud providers are as secure as they claim to be. As a business, you can’t afford to have sensitive information about your company or your clients fall victim to hackers. One of cloud computing’s greatest disadvantages is that no one knows which providers to trust.

Cloud computing is a powerful tool. The businesses may still find trapped with certain limitations like speed, space, and availability. In the end, the benefits of cloud computing technology come down to who chooses to provide it. The businesses must choose a hosted service provider who can be an extension of the business’s team, so that they never lose control of the data.

The service provider should have an ongoing record of providing security to their clients, as well as 24/7 customer service when technical issues arise. The disadvantages may be daunting, but that’s why before choosing a service provider, the business should perform a special screening process and not just select any hosted services provider.