This article, written by Jason Roberts, originally appeared on Forum Info-Tech’s blog. We partner with Forum Info-Tech to provide our clients with top-quality FIT Digital Signage for displaying events, menus, social media, video walls, way-finding, and other digital solutions. The team at Forum Info-Tech also provide a wide range of IT services nationwide—including Cloud consulting and migration management.
Today, operating business in the Cloud is more popular than ever before. Undoubtedly, before this decade ends, most companies will do so in the Cloud. But many companies also know this a mammoth task—and they know they don’t have the capacity to handle this task internally. It’s worth considering, then, the help of Managed IT services and support to do the heavy-lifting of migrating your business applications to the Cloud.
Since there are so many IT managed support services, it’s important to seek out those with only the best industry reputation. Of course, there are many hurdles an organization will face when they’re planning to make the shift. One hurdle is that a legacy application may work slower on the cloud. This only reinforces the importance of choosing a highly competent and credible IT partner to navigate you through the process.
Below are the benefits businesses enjoy when they migrate to the Cloud:
1. Reduced Costs
Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are two public cloud platforms that are extremely efficient and effective. Your organization’s costs would reduce drastically by using these platforms rather than using an on-premise application.
But how is that possible? It’s mainly possible because installing a cloud application doesn’t involve buying any new device or equipment. You only pay for what you’re going to use. During peak usage times, you might have to spend a little more than usual—but when you don’t use much of the storage capacity or infrastructure, you’ll pay less.
2. More Secure
Some people are in the habit of saving files and data directly to their individual computers. But what would happen to those files if the computer crashed or failed beyond recovery? Not everyone thinks about such scenarios—that is, until it happens to them.
With cloud applications, no data will be lost if the computer crashes or a system goes down. Cloud applications automatically save the data every few seconds.
An additional benefit of using a Managed IT services and support team is that they’ll manage the security updates, as well as the software patches. This way, your devices are safe and secure from cyber threats.
3. Improved Collaboration Between Teams
Cloud applications enable staff to collaborate with other team members across the globe in real-time. There is no need to send a document a hundred times after each revision to it. Modifications can be instant and logged for later reference. This saves so much time and effort, and eliminates the “back and forth” that so often occurs otherwise.
4. Ability to Work Anywhere
A cloud application empowers employees to work from any location, rather than necesitating that they be on-site. They can work from home or the car repair shop. They can connect with other team members with ease if they need to collaborate. Studies show that giving employees this flexibility often increases an organization’s retention rate.
5. Easy Scalability
Cloud platforms also ensure that when it’s time to scale up your business, you can do so with ease. If your requirements increase, you can easily change your plan to get more storage as needed. In some cases, you can downsize the services if things are not working as per your expectations—and the best part is you can make these changes almost instantly. There is no wait time.
6. Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery is expensive if you are using on-premise applications. If a computer crashes, say goodbye to sensitive information. But when you are using cloud applications, your data is safe and secure. They are automatically backed-up.