3 of the Best Ways to Use Cloud Technology

Cloud computing is the use of remote servers that are hosted on the web in the storage, management and processing of data as opposed to using local servers or personal computers. The companies that provide these sort of services are referred to as cloud providers. These cloud providers charge businesses for cloud computing services based on their usage. Cloud technology has many uses and applications. Here are three best uses.

1. Data Backup

Data management has become a major IT challenge for many businesses. The data is continuously growing, and it needs to be protected and backed up. It also needs to be availed to the organization when needed to address customer and employee issues or to comply with regulations.

Many organizations are dealing with tight IT budgets and may be looking to consolidate other than expand. They may, therefore, not be able to buy additional storage equipment. The best solution to these immense challenges is cloud back up management.

Cloud back up offers many advantages. For example, it provides scalability. As the data backup continues to grow, companies need not worry about the costs they would incur while buying more devices. The days of acquiring more tapes and disks are long gone, especially when space consolidation has become necessary.

Data loss is a huge concern for many business organizations. Despite this concern, many companies do not invest a lot to protect their data adequately. With cloud back up, Companies can now take advantage of the advanced security features provided by cloud providers and finally suspend their worries over the loss of data.

Many businesses would want to access backed up data whenever they need it. Cloud back up providers invest in massive infrastructure that allows data to be recovered at high speeds. Both private cloud services and hosted cloud services provide options for quick data recovery.

Cloud back up makes it easy for organizations to comply with regulations, which have become very complicated. Not all businesses can have compliance officers. Having a cloud back up that fully complies with industry regulations is one less problem to worry about.

2. Cloud Hosting

Website hosting in this era is evolving. Small and medium sized companies are moving away from traditional hosting as budgets become tight. They are now looking to cloud hosting to solve their needs. Traditional hosting cannot provide the scalability that cloud hosting offers. Cloud hosting companies provide businesses with virtual space whenever they need it. Users pay for what they are using. When traffic to the website increases or reduces, the servers are automatically scaled up and down respectively. There’s no need of paying hefty upfront fees for a single server.

Cloud hosting avoids system overloads by balancing the load across many servers. The failure of a single server does not lead to downtime or loss of information since all the data is mirrored across all the servers. This elasticity and resilience ensure that the performance or bandwidth is not affected merely because one website or application fails. With cloud hosting, companies do not need to invest in infrastructure. The hosting companies not only provide it but also run and maintain it. Businesses are only required to pay for using those resources in the same way that they pay for water and electricity. They are therefore able to save a lot of money they would have otherwise used to buy hardware.

By it being a relatively new technology in the industry, many are hesitant to adopt cloud hosting and may be still hanging onto traditional hosting. Although shared hosting offers convenience and low-entry solutions, cloud hosting offers affordable, flexible and scalable hosting solutions.

3. Developing applications

Businesses can now use cloud computing to develop new applications and services with ease. Cloud providers avail the users with the required hardware and software tools they need and provide them with a platform to design and host the applications. Businesses no longer have to develop in-house hardware and software whenever they need to develop an application.

The platform saves organizations a lot of money. In the absence of cloud providers, a business essentially has to hire an IT team to deal with the process of buying and installing hardware and software. On top of that, they need to hire more people to maintain that infrastructure. With cloud technology, however, they only need to log in and use the platform. Everything else is taken care of on their behalf.

Cloud platforms provide businesses with a lot of advantages. For example, they are allowed to make regular changes and updates to the systems. The platform also facilitates collaboration between the various development teams.

Users can access the cloud platforms through the web. The cloud providers then charge them depending on their use. Different cloud providers have different pricing options. Some will even charge a flat fee every month for hosting the applications. Providers should discuss pricing before they settle on a cloud provider.

Advantages of cloud computing

• Reduced costs – The need for setting up in-house hardware and maintaining it is eliminated.
• Increased security – cloud providers manage data for many customers and stand to lose a lot if safety is compromised. Therefore, they invest a lot in that area to ensure that never happens.
• Economies of scale – It will cost less if many companies rely on the same resources. Cloud providers can spread the cost among many users, and everyone is only required to pay very little.
• Improved performance – cloud providers invest in the latest and fastest computing hardware. It leads to a reduction in network latency.

Cloud technology has indeed transformed the way organizations conduct their business. Other important uses of the technology include data storage and sharing, cloud database, email, ecommerce, etc. The cloud is becoming increasingly important for many businesses, especially the small ones that are looking to grow without having to invest a lot of money up-front. At the moment, IT departments should not be debating whether to use the cloud or not; the conversation should only be focused on how to make better use of it.