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If You Snooze, You Will Lose!
Cloud service providers can help companies save by taking away the burden of hosting servers, software, and the people required to support costly infrastructure.
It’s not cheap providing your own information technology services for customized or off-the-shelf solutions. But, unfortunately, businesses need these services or they will not survive very long.
The edge for adopters is scalable and dynamic computing resources over the internet [or through dedicated networks] delivered virtually anywhere the cloud servers and data centers can be accessed.
Here’s why your competition is already turning to the Cloud to help their organizations:
1. Office Productivity (Software as a Service)
Many businesses are turning to cloud computing for email, file storage, calendars, human resources, sales & marketing, etc.
Some cloud computing providers like Google provide a tool to helps you to compare Gmail cost versus Microsoft Exchange.
Others like SalesForce can provide advanced sales and marketing tools that scale far beyond most internal CRM systems.
If you are planning to introduce something new, find out what’s already offered before your competition get’s there first.
2. Data Protection
Advanced data protection is an important function that most cloud services offer.
If you lose sleep over data loss then storing critical data in a world-class data center managed by best in class engineers is essential to keeping customers happy [and you worry free].
In a world where disaster can strike at any time [and with any means] makes having data protection in the cloud even more important because of the technology used for replicating data across multiple locations [or the cloud].
Ask yourself, “do you want your competitor online before you after tragedy strikes?”
3. Service Recovery
The cloud is highly available and redundant; therefore very effective for disaster recovery.
A disaster recovery plan is an important operation that should work automatically when data or servers crash. And it should recover the data at the earliest time possible.
Most clouds handle DR instantly by incorporating cutting-edge technology which enables them to have your competitor [their customers] back online faster.
4. Added Capacity
If your company is facing tough times and the CAPEX budget is dwindling?
Or maybe your servers are oversubscribed and there is limited storage space left for the new service that will turn things around?
With cloud services, your existing infrastructure will get the assistance it needs and your competition won’t leave you behind.
5. Infrastructure Independence
Cloud services will help reduce the worries of managing large infrastructure and data center dependencies.
Most cloud providers can help you move from a physical world into a new virtual world. You can leverage the cloud to rid yourself of old and out of warranty software and hardware.
6. Reduced Costs (CAPEX/OPEX)
Don’t snooze while competitors are quickly moving to cloud technology and starting to enjoy a cost-savings or you will lose.
As we’ve continued to suggest, many of your competitors are already using Amazon or Rackspace for their compute power to save on CAPEX and OPEX costs.
7. Higher Service Levels (SLA)
Many cloud services offer highly available infrastructure that is much more reliable than many businesses can afford to build their own budgets.
Even with the incidents we read about in the news, the reality is you are still dealing with more risk handling your own data center with over-leveraged hardware, software, and staff; than the basic cloud service offering.
Snooze & Lose?
Cloud computing is the most used IT technology in the world today with the potential of tripling in the next year as more new cloud providers join the ranks.
The early adopters already have the edge and are now using cloud services in ways never thought possible.
If you snooze, you will lose and your competition will benefit from the cloud.