Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services – servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, intelligence and more – over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources and economies of scale. You typically only pay for cloud services you use, helping lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently and scale as your business needs change.
The Benefits of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a big shift from the traditional way businesses think about IT resources. Here are seven common reasons why organisations are turning to cloud computing services:
Cost
Cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software, and setting up and running on-site data centres – the racks of servers, the round-the-clock electricity for power and cooling, the IT experts for managing the infrastructure. It adds up quickly.
Speed
Most cloud computing services are provided as self service and on demand, so even vast amounts of computing resources can be provisioned in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks, giving businesses a lot of flexibility and taking the pressure off capacity planning.
Global scale
The benefits of cloud computing services include the ability to scale elastically. In cloud speak, that means delivering the correct amount of IT resources – for example, more or less computing power, storage, bandwidth – when it’s needed, and from the correct geographic location.
Productivity
On-site data centres typically require a lot of “racking and stacking” – hardware setup, software patching and other time-consuming IT management chores. Cloud computing removes the need for many of these tasks, so IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.
Performance
The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure data centres, which are regularly upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware. This offers several benefits over a single corporate data centre, including reduced network latency for applications and greater economies of scale.
Security
Many cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies and controls that strengthen your security posture overall, helping to protect your data, apps and infrastructure from potential threats.
