Over the last couple of years, start-ups and businesses of all sizes, industries and geographies are moving towards adopting Cloud services. According to Gartner, more than $1 trillion in IT spending will be directly or indirectly affected by the shift to Cloud in the next 4 years. This will make cloud one of the most disruptive forces of IT spending in the last two decades. Already the global IT spend for 2017 is estimated to reach 120+ Billion and is expected to cross 200 Billion by 2020.
As an Entrepreneur, every day I come across fellow entrepreneurs who ask me on what data should be put on Cloud, the cost associated, what are the possibility of automation and how much dependency will business have on it. Few of them are valid queries while majority of them are myths.
Let’s bust some common myths of cloud:
Myth 1: Is my data fully secured?
A breach in data security can harm your business, your reputation, your clients and ultimately your revenues. Hence, one of the biggest concerns a business owner has while considering the Cloud is Security. However, it is much easier to manage security on cloud than on-premise, simply because it’s a shared responsibility with your cloud hosting provider.
Every cloud vendor has a dedicated team of Infosec leaders and CISOs’ ensuring that your business information is safe. They provide multiple security measures, from firewalls and encryptions to intrusion prevention and detection systems, and maintain the highest possible security standards and compliances.
Myth 2: Cloud is expensive!
At this point it would be difficult to say that it is always cheaper to run on cloud, but it is definitely efficient over a longer period. Many enterprises and start-ups make Cloud ROI calculations based on their recent usage, which may not be adequate, keeping in mind the technology trends, growth of the company, flexibility, scalability, etc. that they will require 5 years down.
Cloud works best when the demand is variable, technology is scalable and your teams distributed. Some leading cloud vendors allow you to launch hundreds of servers in an instance, whenever required helping you stay lean when you don’t have that workload and optimize your infrastructure investment.
Myth 3: Cloud needs support all the time
Of course, the beauty of Cloud is that everything from the infrastructure layer upwards can be automated, but this requires a significant level of expertise and understanding of the tools involved. For a start-up designing from scratch to run in the cloud, automation is easy, enabling auto scaling and self-healing with no need for human intervention at all.
However, if you don’t have this level of knowledge and expertise in-house, then you’ll likely need additional support — at least for the short-term. Leading hosting providers like AWS and Microsoft Azure, provide unmatched expertise, which not only gets you started but allows you to focus on business while they manage the cloud for you.
Myth 4: Migrating to cloud is a big hassle, than On-premise
If you partner with a trusted and experienced service provider, it is a seamless process. It can all happen very quickly with minimal downtime. However one should know that migration is not a one-size-fits-all process. Your workload and applications may require different stacks and will pose different challenges. Your off-the-shelf applications may be easier to migrate because they only need a re-hosting approach, which moves applications to the cloud with minimal modification using automation and scripts.
Other complex applications may first require re-calibrating or modifying the underlying code to optimize it for the cloud. Cloud migration strategy is a requisite for businesses that have mission-critical applications.
Myth 5: Cloud Technology is still at infancy
For those of you who feel Cloud technology is still at a nascent stage, IDG Cloud survey says, 34% of the companies worldwide have in some way already started their Cloud engagement and 18% will be migrating by March 2019. Within the next four years, you can expect to see continuous Cloud innovation at an ever increasing pace. Frequent refinement will help ensure that Cloud computing meets the needs of every size and type of business. Those who harness the cloud now will be the first to reap its long-term rewards.
Myth 6: Only Technology companies can benefit from Cloud
This is one of the biggest myths of Cloud that I have come across. Cloud is the most flexible, open, scalable, integratable, collaborative, cost effective and environmentally friendly technology available that can help businesses, however big or small, whether distributed or concentrated. Any company in the horizontal or vertical markets can use its potential to grow their business.
If you a looking for out-of-the-box technology solutions for your company. Contact Intelegain.
