Cloud computing has changed IT. Radically.
People often say cloud computing is like buying electricity from an energy company – while traditional IT is like installing and maintaining your own generator.
With traditional IT, you purchase your own software and servers. You get it installed on your premises and have someone come in to keep it up-to-date. With cloud computing, you:
- don’t own any servers (they reside in a secure enterprise data centre)
- access your business systems using an internet connection
- pay-as-you-go, rather than all upfront.
Why is it called ‘cloud’ computing?
Because in IT diagrams the internet is typically drawn as a big cloud.
What’s the big deal?
By moving your IT systems to the cloud, your business benefits in a number of ways.
- Costs – No large capital expenditure to create your own IT infrastructure. And no more expensive IT people to keep it running.
- Security and reliability – No need for manual backups or server updates. Your systems are always up-to-date. Automatically.
- Rapid deployment – New IT systems can be up and running in days rather than months, dramatically decreasing the time until the systems are providing value.
- Availability – Your people can access business systems from anywhere, anytime. All they need is access to a computer (or mobile device) with an internet connection.
- Increased user adoption – Good web-based systems are far more intuitive than traditional IT systems. They reduce the need for major investments in training and support.
- Flexibility – By obtaining your software as an offsite managed service, you can scale usage (and costs) up and down to meet your needs.