Why? Well, this is an essential business practice that an increasing number of people are rightfully recognising as extremely important to any business’ success. Now, getting involved in cloud migration may feel a little daunting. As with any IT or tech process, it’s something that people may have a broad understanding of, but that we begin to feel lost with when it comes to actually implementing the software and process.
There are a number of different things that you’re going to have to take into account when getting involved with cloud migration, ranging from stability and cost concerns to all important security concerns.
However, your efforts will usually prove more than worth the time, money and effort invested into getting started off. The vast majority of businesses who have successfully completed a cloud migration have experienced a consequent improvement in business scalability, a reduction in running costs and improved cybersecurity and online safety. Of course there’s a lot to learn, so let’s get into some of the basics and benefits of cloud migration!
What is cloud migration?
Let’s start at the very beginning. What actually is cloud migration? You may be surprised to know that even if you haven’t implemented the cloud into your business yourself, it’s still highly likely that your business is already using it in some capacity.
If you or any of your staff use Sharepoint, Zoom, Office 365, Google Drive or Gmail, then you’re already making use of and interacting with the cloud. Put simply, the cloud is a set of on-demand computing services, ranging from applications to storage and processing power. It is remotely stored outside of your business, typically over the internet, and is most often paid for on a pay-as-you-go basis. Rather than your company having to own computing infrastructure and data centers, you can simply rent access to the cloud, gaining access to anything from applications to storage.
If you decide to migrate to the cloud, you’ll find that you will move critical services from on-premise and co-located hardware to a cloud provider. Popular and commonly used providers include:
● Amazon Web Services
● Google Cloud Platform
● Microsoft Azure
Using any of these services will allow you to manage your IT infrastructure entirely remotely without the security risk, inconvenience, and cost of maintaining on-premise hardware. This, as you can imagine, is also extremely useful if your team are working remotely, as they can safely and easily access the cloud from their devices at home.
Benefits of migrating to the cloud
Now, you may have begun to think up some of the benefits of migrating to the cloud yourself and we have briefly touched on a few benefits above. But let’s take a moment to deep dive into some of the key benefits that you can look forward to enjoying with a successful cloud migration!
Improved security
The first, and perhaps most appreciated, benefit of migrating to the cloud is that it is generally more safe and secure than other, more traditional network systems. When it comes down to it, the cloud is composed of a number of systems, networks and applications that must be configured and maintained securely by following the “shared responsibility ”model. This is something that you will have to implement across your company, but that you and your staff will quickly grow used to.
The “shared responsibility” model ensures that everyone knows that they are responsible for their own part in securing the cloud. By making sure that all important information is saved to the cloud, rather than personal devices, you can ensure that data and information is accessible to anyone within your business at any time. This is the case even if physical machinery and hardware breaks, is lost, stolen or otherwise put out of action. You can also rest assured that the majority of popular cloud providers offer countless built-in security features, including security analytics, periodic updates and cross-enterprise visibility.
Increased scalability
One of the main aims of any business is to grow. Increased sales, mean increased profits and increased growth. Of course, when you experience success and growth, you’re going to have to scale your business up. The good news about the cloud is that, by using it, your company has an improved ability to scale up or down. This can be based entirely on your changing IT requirements and business plan. When you migrate to the cloud, you will find that you suddenly have the ability to significantly and quickly reshape your infrastructure and workloads. This will allow you to accommodate your business’ and customers’ changing needs without finding yourself stuck with equipment and software that you may need to upgrade and change.
Reduced Costs
As you can imagine, having control over your business in this way will save you a whole lot of time, money and resources that would otherwise be used collaborating with large scale data centers that may not live up to their promises. It gives you more control over your business, as outsourcing will become unnecessary. It also means that your business may no longer have to lease expensive physical locations or have capital tied up in devices and equipment that take up valuable space and time. Instead, everything will rest in the cloud!
Conclusion
Of course, there’s a whole lot more to be known about the cloud, as well as countless more benefits. So if you’d like to know more, or if you’d like to take the next step towards implementing the cloud into your own business operations, please do not hesitate to contact us at Gemraj Technologies Ltd. Our cloud specialists will be more than happy to answer any questions and get your cloud journey off to the best possible start!