Cloud, the myths and the characteristics

With the passing time, cloud has taken a strong place in the global space. And, it is just not restricted to
a single deployment model, technology or a platform. Cloud is diverse and is widely identified by factors such as application design, public cloud platforms, security, cloud management, service provider strategies, hybrid and private cloud. At the same time, a lot of misconceptions tend to get developed among people.

Let’s understand what are those misconceptions or the myths that surround cloud:

• Cloud and money are soul sisters – It is a common assumption that once you invest in cloud, you are going to invest at large scale. The survey of Gartner’s 2014 CIO says cost savings are of approximately 14% of the companies’ public cloud usage. Migration to the cloud usually brings agility in the processes, so, money comes secondary. It is important to use the total cost of ownership and analyze the implications when you move from capital expenditure to operating expenditure.
• If it is good, it is cloud – There are tendencies of naming anything that sounds or feels good as ‘cloud’. Always identify things by capabilities such as virtualization, automation and others. It is important to call things with what they are. Do not get moved by ‘cloud washing’.
• Cloud is for everything – Cloud may not be supportive to all the workloads so it is wise not to go for cloud where non cloud solutions are appropriate.
• Cloud is equal to Data Center – It is an assumption among people that if cloud has been taken then they can shut down their data centers. In any form data centers are not synonymous to cloud. Take cloud from the perspective of workload.

It is important that one should create cloud strategies keeping mind the business goals and mapping the potential profits. And at the same time, it is important mitigate the drawbacks if any. Cloud offers you benefits such as document control, security, increased collaboration and a ways to add flexibility to your business. Talk through the perspective of capital expenditure, cloud is easy and quick in deployment, so businesses have lesser startup cost and moderate operating expenses.

With the coming of cloud, the infrastructure has gone to another level. It has been possible to manage and secure critical information and have complete network availability. You can easily access database information on a remote basis so business productivity sees the rise even if you are travelling. Following are some ways the IT infrastructure has been benefitted with cloud:

• Flexibility: Cloud offers an opportunity not to depend upon any equipment so accessing it anywhere as said above is possible. As a result, one is in a position to increase the capacity or scaling it down. Cloud has been very result oriented for companies in retail, ecommerce and similar more industries which have high seasonal traffic and also those startups which have a potential to quick growth.
• Reduced Cost:  When you embrace cloud, you save on purchase and maintenance of costly hardware, for one thing. Cloud reduces the requirements of staff for IT needs. On the other hand, cloud offers tools which assist in streamlining productivity and reduce costs.
• Stability: Cloud computing provides enhanced uptime where all forms of issues are taken care of externally. Cloud permits you to upscale or downscale the IT requirements as and when required. You may also increase the existing resources in order to accommodate increased business requirements. As a result, you are able to meet with the demands of the business needs.

Cloud assists you to increase the capacity or add to the capabilities without investing in infrastructure, licensing new software or training personnel. Furthermore, look at the following advantages of cloud:

1) No more payment structure for anyone - When you have cloud, you do not shoulder the responsibilities of installing software, managing email servers, and running backups. With cloud, you put job of maintaining the service with the vendor.

2) No more buying of software - You no longer have to buy software. When you have cloud, there is no requirement of buying software programs and installing them on your servers. As a result, the cloud is more economic.

3) Cloud computing is quick - It helps you start your business quickly. The reason why it is quick is that it is easy to sign up for cloud computing application as compared to buying a server, installing and then upgrading. Since there is no requirement of buying hardware or software, so expansion is economical.

4) Easy integration - Cloud computing involves Application Programming Interface (API), you can easily find “compatible” applications as compared to paying to have the applications that you want to be integrated.

5) Consolidating different application needs in one multi-application cloud computing service - Just like there are Google Apps which include calendar scheduling application email, creating presentations, documents and forms, online file storage, Google Sites etc for $5/month. So, that is how you can go ahead and create one application for all needs.

Cloud is a major recommendation to streamline your business, freeing up your equipment and storing data in the most secure manner. If healthy business is on your mind, go the cloud way.