With an increasing number of enterprise companies embracing cloud solutions, it’s apparent that the conveniences associated with the cloud are overtaking many of the concerns initially associated with it.
According to a report recently released by BI Intelligence, 67 percent of companies were using the cloud and other Infrastructure-as-a-Service solutions as of 2015 — a significant increase of nearly 20 percent over the previous year.
The report also revealed that the advantages of using the cloud included:
Flexibility. Unlike on-site solutions, the cloud allows an IT department to scale on demand — adding and reducing capacity as needed to reflect demand. A retail company, for example, may require extra capacity during holiday seasons. With the cloud, employees also can access data from devices, although this may be seen by a negative by some companies because of security concerns
Cost-effectiveness. In many cases, companies are able to pay rates based on their use — which allows for a more cost-effective model than many other solutions. In some instances, the use of the public cloud may be free.
Ability to create a hybrid solution. Companies have successfully leveraged the public and private cloud to develop more effective solutions. As a result, they can take advantage of the benefits of the public cloud for areas that are considered less vulnerable to security risks while opting for the private cloud for operations that contain sensitive data. An ideal example is the use of Google docs for collaborative efforts on presentations.
Improved agility. As part of a hybrid cloud solution, for example, IT departments can take advantage of an agile model that allows them to quickly move between the two models while delivering services.
Another reason companies may be embracing cloud solutions is the ability to create their own cloud environments that simulate those in the public cloud— a feature that has been recently offered by vendors.
This addresses many of their concerns enterprise companies may have about compliance and other legal regulations.
