Because Cloud Services Could Save You the Horror of Lost Data

Being immersed in the busy day-to-day schedules, one may not think of the horrors of not backing up the data but imagine you’re in a situation when suddenly there is some hardware or software failure, a natural disaster, theft or your systems being prone to hackers or viruses and on this unfortunate day, you lose all or major part of your most valuable data. Moreover, there is absolutely no way you could retrieve it back even by spending a million bucks. What would you do, other than just regretting over not backing it up? Take the most recent example of the ransomware attack which affected over 150 countries by Friday morning and has been recorded as the worst ever. It encrypted the valuable data of so many companies around the world and demanded a huge ransom to release it back. The companies lost all access to their encrypted data, which resulted in the sufferings of countless customers.

Anyone can imagine how stressful this situation could be. Therefore, the need to have a good backup system is an absolutely essential part of any good disaster recovery plan. Some media of data storage could be magnetic tape, hard disk, optical storage, solid-state storage, floppy disks etc, but such traditional forms of data storage could fail. Thus, the need of storing data on cloud-based services is on the rise.

Cloud storage refers to backing up data to a remote, cloud-based server. This server is usually hosted by a third-party service provider, who charges the backup customer a fee based on capacity, bandwidth and number of users. The information is stored on physical servers maintained and controlled by a cloud computing service providers such as amazon service provider and as a user, you can access your stored information on the cloud via the internet. Different cloud computing services are available to suit different needs like some target individual users to store photos, documents videos etc, others target companies that need extensive platforms to develop applications and softwares. Prices vary depending on the needs.

Sharing of files to others is possible from anywhere using cloud storage, compared to traditional storage. It is possible to retrieve the data in case of system failures when even the provided backup fails. The files stored on cloud servers can be accessed from anywhere using the internet connection.

Adoption of cloud services is rising as businesses of all sizes, industries and geographies are turning to cloud services. They have a measurable impact on businesses. While some organizations are still afraid to move themselves into the cloud, many have jumped on the cloud computing bandwagon with products such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Let’s look at the ways in which organizations of all sizes are taking advantage of the several benefits that they offer.

The biggest advantage of cloud computing is that you can pay for what you use. Cloud computing reduces the cost of managing and maintaining IT systems since it allows its users to use the resources of their cloud computing service providers rather than purchasing expensive systems and equipment for their businesses. It allows scalability and flexibility to businesses as they can scale up or scale down their operation and storage need quickly to suit different situations. It allows business continuity by giving you access to your data after a disastrous situation of data loss. Moreover, it allows employees to be more flexible in their work practices. For example, it gives them the ability to access data from home, on holiday, or while commuting to and from work. If an employee needs to access data while he is off-site, he can connect to the virtual office easily.

Business innovation initiatives have become much easier by readily available cloud services. Utilizing or combining the cloud services in businesses can result in innovative new business models. There are even companies that are building entirely new business models solely using cloud services. With cloud computing, companies are able to reduce the size of their own data centers. They only need to pay for server and infrastructure capacity as and when required, hence proving that cloud computing costs are more flexible than traditional methods.

Also, it allows them to make a switch from traditional to cloud computing without any costly upgrades or additions to existing infrastructure. Companies who use shared resources improve their green credentials as well.

If you are one big organization, then chances are that you might already be using this service since major big companies are making use of cloud computing in today’s time. So, you might be well aware of how it has reduced your costs and allowed greater work flexibility. And if you’re an aspiring startup venture and have not yet thought of moving to the cloud, then there is no reason to remain devoid of these benefits.