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11 January 2019Importance of Sales Forecasting for Businesses
16 January 2019
According to the Economic Times , “The worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow 17.3 percent in 2019 to total $206.2 billion, up from $175.8 billion in 2018, according to Gartner, Inc. In 2018, Gartner forecasts that the market will grow 21 percent, up from $145.3 billion in 2017.” The trend depicts a steady increase in the number of enterprises moving their applications, data, and other business elements to the cloud.
Cloud migration refers to the process of moving applications, data, and other business elements from on-premise environments to the cloud environment. Also, cloud migration can be defined as the process of moving applications and data from one cloud platform or vendor to another. Many enterprises move their applications and data to the cloud to avoid the need to build and maintain on-premise infrastructure.
Cloud migration further helps businesses to reduce capital investment and operational cost by availing computing resources over the internet based on pay-as-you-use pricing models. However, the cost is not the only factor driving cloud migration. Businesses from various sectors and regions move their applications and data to reap benefits in terms of flexibility, scalability, availability, accessibility, and security.
Understanding 7 Crucial Advantages or Benefits of Cloud Migration
1) Enhance Computing Resource Scalability
Businesses have to invest in additional hardware and specific software to upscale their onsite IT infrastructure. The cloud technologies enable businesses to avail of computing resources on demand without investing in specific hardware and software. As businesses consume computing resources over the internet, they can easily upscale or downscale the computing resources according to their current needs.
Also Read: On-demand Scalability – One of the predominant advantages of Cloud Migration!
2) Improve Operational Efficiency
The businesses have the option to integrate cloud-based services seamlessly with a variety of enterprise systems and solutions. Hence, it becomes easier for businesses to modernize and interconnect their existing applications and solutions. The interconnectivity helps businesses to improve promotional efficiency and employee productivity. The businesses can further improve operational efficiency using a variety of cloud-based enterprise services and solutions. They can access the updated version of the solutions without handling complex software configuration.
3) Enhance Data Security
Enterprises from various sectors have been migrating corporate and customer data from on-premise data centers to the cloud. The authorized users can access the data stored in the cloud over the internet without using any physical machinery. Hence, cloud computing helps businesses to enhance data accessibility and availability. At the same time, cloud vendors keep business data secured by handling security issues proactively and updating security mechanisms regularly. A number of studies even suggest that data stored in the cloud are more secure than the data stored in onsite data centers.
4) Speed up Application/Service Deployment
Many organizations initiate cloud migration to accelerate deployment of applications and services. As mentioned earlier, cloud technologies enable businesses to deploy applications and services without building and maintaining on-premise IT infrastructure. The solutions and services provided by leading cloud vendors help businesses to avail servers and other computing resources required to deploy an application/service on demand. The businesses can further deploy the application/service by avoiding complex processes like purchasing the right servers, installing and updating operating systems, and setting up data centers.
5) Facilitate Employee Collaboration
The cloud technologies enable businesses to enhance the accessibility of applications and data. The authorized employees can access the applications over the internet regardless of their current location. Hence, cloud migration helps businesses to operate in distributed work environments and work with remote employees. The businesses can further facilitate seamless communication and collaboration between onsite and remote employees using a variety of cloud-based communication and collaboration tools.
6) Ensure Business Continuity
The smart and cost-efficient disaster recovery solutions provided by leading cloud platforms make their score over conventional technologies. The businesses need to invest additional resources and time to set up the disaster recovery system online. The applications and data stored in the cloud further make it easier for enterprises to implement robust business continuity plan. They can further keep their applications functional and available by accessing disaster recovery or business continuity as a cloud-based service.
7) Reduce IT Infrastructure Complexity
Often businesses need to deploy dedicated IT professionals to maintain and upgrade their onsite IT infrastructure. The onsite IT infrastructure further becomes more complex as the business expands its operations or launch new products. Cloud migration helps businesses to run applications and store data in an environment which is managed and maintained by the cloud service providers. The businesses are not required to deploy additional technicians to maintain and upkeep their IT infrastructure continuously.
On the whole, enterprises initiate cloud migration with the intention to reap benefits in terms of cost, scalability, availability, accessibility, and security. But they must remember that cloud migration is a complex and time-consuming process. They need to implement a robust strategy to address several cloud migration challenges. Many enterprises even avail managed cloud services to simplify cloud migration by overcoming constraints related to skill, resources, and time.
