Reasons Why Small Business Should Move to Cloud Computing

Most small businesses of late have landed themselves at a juncture wherein they have accumulated a whole lot of outpaced and overused system hardware that they need to get rid of. The question that they are faced with now is if they should consider buying new systems or invest in cloud infrastructure. While cloud computing has become the latest debate for the ‘business’ fraternity; it has some real time benefits which can be banked upon; especially by small firms. Have you considered it yet?

The research carried out by Analysts 451 had revealed that the cloud computing industry will be worth $16.7 billion in 2013. Gone are the good old days when software used to be purchased and installed on computers to get work done. It’s all in the cloud now and the cloud is all pervasive. With the advent of cloud computing, the focus from purchasing software has shifted to renting software, making it simpler for businesses to operate with lesser hassles of installing and maintaining IT infrastructure.

Small businesses are currently using Software as a Service (SaaS), which is a type of cloud computing platform that offers services that are customizable and agile, such that they pay for the amount they use. However, smaller businesses are increasingly shifting focus to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), which is another type of cloud computing platform that provides a comprehensive and wholesome cloud infrastructure deployment comprising of network equipment, email servers, data centers, storage, operating systems and disaster recovery.

Discussed hereunder are a few reasons as to why small businesses should consider shifting base:

• Enterprise Level Equipment within Small Budgets: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offers enterprise level equipment, which is otherwise quite expensive and way beyond the budget capacity of small firms. Irrespective of whether you need a lightning fast server for web hosting or working on your database or both, IaaS enables the perfect distributed resource environment for your business to flourish.
  
  
• Save Network Fixing and Expertise Costs: With IaaS, you only pay for how much you use and you can always scale up your usage limit to meet your changing business requirements, even immediately. It also helps save the bucks that you otherwise have to drain on technicians to get your IT infrastructure fixed. Fixing network outages, hardware issues and making timely hardware updates no longer remains a headache for businesses and they can comfortably concentrate on application and service deployments.
  
  
• IaaS Pairs with Both PaaS and SaaS: They fit in like a stack, with the Software as a Service (SaaS) being used for applications and the Platform as a Service (PaaS) deployed for web software development. Thus, businesses can rest assured that the cloud infrastructure will operate seamlessly for all business applications and development platforms.
  
  
• Lesser in-house Infrastructures Required: Clearly, investments in the infrastructure as well as the infrastructure itself is reduced to negligible amounts therefore helping business save money on IT infrastructures. The data center contains entire server structures and hardware that are needed to run a server system, helping businesses reduce their hardware requirements.
  
  
• Works on Cloud Based Servers: A data center requires constant maintenance, monitoring and security so that the businesses’ data and confidential information remains secure and can be accessed as and when required. Through IaaS, even though the business vital information is stored at the data center of the cloud server host, its secure and accessible at all times.

The cloud is a potential empowerment tool for small businesses providing them quality at affordable costs. Considering cloud deployment can be immensely beneficial for small businesses making them completion worthy and securing them from economic volatilities.

However, it wouldn’t be fair to only highlight the pros since the concept of cloud deployment has its shortfalls or constraints. The prime constraint is that if the remote data center fails, your business comes to a standstill thus questioning the reliability of the technology. However, cloud computing allows for procuring resources across multiple data centers across multiple locations, allowing for redundancy and failover. This is again available at a fraction of a cost of having the business procure their own hardware and maintain multiple locations for failover.

Think the shift to cloud infrastructures makes sense for small enterprises? What are your takes on the IaaS? Share with us by commenting below.