The business benefits of cloud computing

Businesses of all shapes and sizes are shifting some or all of their applications and data to cloud computing. This is to take avail of the numerous benefits available to them via the cloud. However, cloud computing is still an emerging technology and the business benefits may not be apparent.

In addition to developing strategies to ensure close alignment with the present and future business requirements, IT departments finally could become an asset to the organization. IT organizations that span the cloud and change consequently, not just prevent loss of jobs, but are increasingly important for business as t become more agile and more aligned to the objectives. Cloud computing environments could run on existing hardware infrastructures. Organizations could make the switch from traditional to cloud computing without expensive upgrades or additions to its current infrastructure.

Traditional infrastructure facilities could take months to get toing. In the meantime, business opportunity could come and go, without effect. With cloud, opportunities could be quickly exploited. For this reasons, a lot of businesses embrace the cloud via credit card payments, regardless whether or not the CIO cloud will accept.

The following are some business benefits of cloud computing

1. Reduce costs. Cloud environments allow businesses to scale their storage and compute needs on as-needed basis, with could keep expenses low. In addition, the cloud architecture moves Information Technology spending from capital to operating expenses, making it easier on the books and also simpler to justify. Costs are aligned directly with business usage, so they are easy to predict as well.
2. Cloud provide agility. An agile business is a successful one, and agility is acquired form high automation levels. Cloud computing is designed to be heavily automated as well as self-provisioning. It provides end users the ability to scale their needs up rapidly and down with no need for manual intervention. Businesses have the capacity to respond more quickly to customer demands, which boosts service and responsiveness.
3. Focus on core competencies. The automation built into cloud requires less work on the part of the IT department, thus budgets and resources could be freed up to focus on core competencies. A business runs on information technology, yet managing IT should be as streamlined as easy as possible. Cloud offers such flexibility.
4. Big Data. One of the buzz words today is Big Data. This is a convenient shorthand on the ability of huge organizations to do advanced databases analysis. The cloud could allow big companies not only to store data in the cloud, but provide the necessary computing power as well to sift through numerous unstructured data. In turn, this provides them the business intelligence required to move the business forward and achieve the goals. With cloud, it could be done and presented to end users as a tool that is easy to use.

5. Software development. The economic gains achieved by cloud implementation also apply to software development in the cloud, particularly in big companies with internal software developer teams. The cloud, with its standard architecture means development could be much faster than traditional environments. One of the most vital actors of cloud, Salesforce remarked that software development on the platform could be up to four times faster than normal. Moreover, services database and others are incorporated into the platform. Also, best practices are established firmly and documented so beginners could follow. With cloud, virtual machines could be deployed, installed and tested much faster compared to physical machines which have to be reimaged each time a new version of software needs testing.

6. Portable applications. When properly designed, cloud computing provides the benefit of portable apps. Business apps and data could be moved from traditional computing infrastructure to the cloud and back again without difficulty. This gives businesses flexibility on how they utilize and manage data and applications. They could get the best of both traditional and cloud environments.

CIOs are warming to the cloud. They think that the cloud is good for business. Smart CIOs know that in order to keep their jobs, they should be able to provide the same services to other business units with the same cost and agility structure. So long as there is an internet connection, anyone could have anywhere, anytime access to data and software needed to do the job. In most instances, this is true even when using a mobile device such as a smart phone or tablet. Switching a business over to run on cloud is referred often as ‘moving to the cloud’.