With the COVID-19 lockdowns forcing most economic sectors to slow down, cloud technology can help your business survive and remain competitive. More specifically, you can cut costs and increase operational efficiency using the cloud.

Ensuring continuity and efficiency with the cloud

The need to stay at home and practice social distancing have changed the way many businesses operate. With their employees unable to come to the office, organizations are forced to function with a remote team whose members are often miles away from each other.

This is where cloud technology helps. When you migrate your data to the cloud, your files are stored in a centralized server that can be accessed via the internet. So as long as a user has an internet-connected device (like a smartphone or laptop) and has the right login credentials, they can access these files from any location.

The cloud also allows multiple users to work on a single file at the same time. Any change to the file is seen in real-time, which makes it feel like team members are collaborating in the same room.

Moreover, with cloud-based communication tools like Slack, your team can communicate with each other through chat, voice calls, and video conferencing. By incorporating these technologies into your processes, your organization can function efficiently while following social distancing protocols.

Saving money with the cloud

Suddenly adopting a remote work setup after years of strictly on-site operations can take a lot of getting used to. One of the most difficult parts of transitioning is making sure you and your staff have the right hardware and software to perform work-related tasks.

Instead of buying hardware with company funds and issuing these machines to your staff, you can have them use their personal laptop computers and mobile devices instead. With this tactic, however, you’re not sure if your employees’ devices have the appropriate specifications to handle their workload.

If you use special software, you may also have to buy and install them on your staff’s personal devices. In short, whether you issue computers or adopt a bring your own device approach, you’re bound to spend a lot of money to facilitate remote work.

But with cloud computing, you won’t need to buy new hardware. You can host your applications on the cloud, enabling a user to run them through a web browser even if they are not installed in his or her device. And because hosted applications use the cloud provider’s resources, they don’t strain user’s devices and can be used even with older or lower-end computers.

Furthermore, hosting applications on the cloud eliminates the need to install programs in each of your staff’s devices. This is particularly helpful if the software you use has a limit on the number of devices it can be installed on. This way, you save money by not having to invest in newer devices for your staff and wasting time locally downloading the software.

Should you migrate to the cloud now?

The short answer is yes. Thanks to the COVID-19 lockdowns, the ability to work remotely has now become essential to a business’s survival. And the cloud easily facilitates a remote work environment.

See for yourself how the cloud lets you continue doing business even in the middle of a pandemic. Contact us today to get started!

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Thanks to economies of scale, cloud computing resources are cheaper and more stable than those on a local area network, but the cloud is still made up of servers that require expert configuration. Serverless computing is one way to reduce management burdens.

What is it?

Outsourcing workloads to the cloud — like websites and apps — requires just as much hardware as if the computations were performed in an on-site server. The only difference is the location of the server.

Office 365 or Google Docs are great examples of this model. Thousands of servers are set up to run these apps so there is always enough capacity to handle the millions of people who use these apps at any given moment. Microsoft and Google need to manage and maintain these servers 24/7 to keep up with demand so they’re always on and always ready to handle more workloads, even during off-peak hours.

Serverless computing changes everything by allowing developers to create apps and websites that use cloud resources only when they’re needed. So, if you were to create a web app, you wouldn’t need to pay for a dedicated cloud server. The cloud provider would host your app’s programming code and run it only when a user requested it. The cloud provider would take care of allocating the appropriate resources and charge by the second for what you use.

Who can benefit from it?

Serverless computing is for users who use cloud resources for processing power. If you’re using the cloud only to store files, serverless services aren’t going to help you. However, if you use the cloud to process information and turn it into something more useful, serverless computing will help you immensely.

An everyday example of this is Amazon’s Alexa. Every command the AI assistant responds to is nothing more than an app that sits dormant until a user tells Alexa to run it. Small businesses are creating apps in Amazon’s cloud that can be processed by the voice assistant without the burden of setting up a dedicated server.

Serverless computing isn’t about getting rid of servers; it’s about using their raw computing power without being forced to fine tune them first. It falls under the umbrella of virtualization technology and is another step in the right direction for small businesses working with limited budgets.

For more information about how virtualization can help you lower costs and increase efficiencies, give us a call today.

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Who would have guessed that clouds could be so complex? Yet in a day and age of seemingly continuous technological advances, “cloud” computing has become one of the more intricate and interesting approaches to managing IT resources for businesses. Not to mention one of the most cost effective, flexible, and secure, thanks in part to something known as the “hybrid cloud.”

Hybrid clouds, as the name suggests, are a version of cloud computing that are made up of two different components. They are a combination of private clouds (where data and applications that require tighter controls are hosted either internally or privately in the cloud space); and public clouds (which are operated externally by third-party providers with the express purpose of reducing a company’s IT infrastructure).

A recent “State of the Cloud” report indicates that 71% of all cloud users are now implementing hybrid cloud solutions, mainly because the ways in which they benefit small- and medium-sized businesses are so numerous. Here we’ve highlighted what we consider to be the 4 most significant benefits of hybrid cloud solutions.

Cost efficiency

Does your industry go through seasonal workload increases? With a hybrid cloud solution, you’ll be able to easily handle spikes in demand by migrating data from maxed-out on-premise servers to scalable, pay-as-you-go “servers in the sky” whenever needed, without incurring any extra hardware and maintenance costs.

Adaptability

Having the ability to choose between on-site/privately-hosted cloud servers and ones on the public cloud gives you more than just cost flexibility. It also gives you the capacity to pair the right IT solution with the right job, like keeping smaller projects on your local or private cloud, while utilizing the more robust computing resources on offer from the public cloud for your bigger projects.

Scalability

What exactly does this common IT buzzword mean for your organization? In a nutshell, it means that the hybrid cloud allows you to “scale up” or “scale down” on an as-needed basis. So if there are last-minute demand increases that your hardware can’t support, or if you’re simply planning for future expansion, hybrid cloud solutions allow for on-demand increases or decreases in capacity.

Security

Last, but certainly not least, are the security advantages of a hybrid cloud solution. SMBs are able to host within the private cloud their more sensitive data such as an e-commerce website or HR platform, while using the public cloud space for less sensitive data where it’s more cost effective and there is less likely to be major problems should there ever be a security breach.

SMBs can set up their hybrid cloud model in a few different ways, depending on their precise needs and the types of providers available to them:

1. By employing one specialized cloud provider who offers soup-to-nuts hybrid solutions
2. By integrating the services of a private cloud provider with those of a public cloud provider themselves
3. By hosting a private cloud themselves and then adopting a public cloud service which is incorporated into their infrastructure

So as more of our customers’ IT infrastructure moves to the cloud, we’re adapting and developing innovative ways to maintain hybrid cloud environments. What this means for you is we’ve got the know-how to provide outright cloud solutions, or at the very least the expert consultation you need, to ensure that your day-to-day operations transition to a hybrid cloud solution without interruption and in a cost-effective manner. Contact us today to learn more about the benefits that the hybrid cloud can bring to your business.

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