Top 11 benefits of cloud computing
Even though the likely trend for the enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform points towards the cloud, there are still some business leaders reluctant to migrate. Valid concerns such as data retention, security and other risks are usually the case for the indecisions. Despite these concerns, there are still so many benefits (some addressing the aforementioned concerns) for moving to the cloud. Darcy DeClute, Agile coach & Scrum Master at Scrumtuous Inc, shares an article on TechTarget of the top benefits of cloud computing, and why your business should consider making the switch.
High availability. “A highly available system is one that experiences negligible downtime. Downtime is typically counted in seconds rather than minutes or hours, since cloud-based services rarely go down.”
Reliability. “Reliability describes how well a service performs the tasks it promises to do. It ensures highly available databases don’t randomly corrupt records or delete messages. Cloud providers routinely upgrade, update, patch and test their systems to make sure their services perform as promised. They further guarantee the reliability of their services in SLAs.”
Scalability. “In the cloud, you can scale your architecture in minutes and with the click of a button.”
Elasticity. “You can scale cloud-based services as needed. AWS provides a specialized Auto Scaling tool that helps companies dynamically rightsize EC2 instances, Aurora DB and NoSQL databases. An organization with a highly seasonal business, for example, could have millions of dollar’s worth of hardware and software sitting idle during slow months. That’s not a good allocation of capital.”
Agility. “One of the cloud computing benefits developers love is that it frees them from the time-consuming chore of managing infrastructure.”
Cost savings. “In the cloud, capacity planning is no longer guesswork. You simply scale up and down as needed. You don’t have to spend millions of dollars up front for software licenses or mainframe servers. And you’ll never run into the problem of having bought too much hardware.”
Global reach. “To reduce application latency, a data center should reside near its users. With cloud-based services, you can deploy applications into any region on the globe. You can also use edge locations around the world that have the power to cache data and further reduce application latency.”
Pre-certified compliance. “Pre-certified compliance is one of the biggest benefits cloud computing can bring to highly regulated industries. AWS, Azure, Google and IBM cloud-based infrastructure comes pre-certified in a multitude of fields.”
Enhanced security. “Some detractors suggest that moving data and applications to the cloud creates a security risk, but that is not the case. Take AWS, for example: All data that flows across the AWS global network is automatically encrypted. Most AWS services, such as S3, provide the option to encrypt all data at rest, so that if a data storage device is compromised, the information on it is indecipherable.”
Automation. “Every AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and IBM component comes with an API interface that makes it fully programmable. Developers can create, configure, query and destroy cloud-based resources with SDKs written in Java, Python, JavaScript and C++.”
Environmental sustainability. “You don’t generally think of AWS, Azure or Google Cloud as leaders in the fight against climate change, but there would be a positive impact on the environment if smaller companies moved their infrastructure into the cloud rather than running its own less-efficient data centers.”
