As the cloud takes on a more predominant role in our modern world, many businesses are considering welcoming a cloud-first strategy into their IT operations. Cloud first strategies take the approach of utilizing shared (publicly hosted, but still password protected) infrastructures versus building and hosting your own private storage facility, systems, etc. There are multiple cost-saving and productivity improving benefits to adopting a cloud first strategy. Here are a few that may make you consider implementing a cloud-first strategy within your organization.
Savings
One of the greatest benefits of adopting a cloud first strategy is cost savings. Building and managing your own hardware to host your applications takes time, money and resources. There’s always something that needs to be updated, replaced, or repaired, and with that upkeep comes equipment and employee costs. While moving to a third-party provider incurs a monthly fee, this fee is usually less than all of the hours and resources spent managing applications and servers internally. Because of this, businesses who take a cloud first strategy see a reduction in hosting costs, equipment, licensing and labor costs.
Before you move to the cloud, sure to use a de-duplication software to eliminate duplicated files before sending your data to the cloud. That way, you’ll maximize your storage plan and won’t pay for storing the same data twice.
Scalability
As businesses grow and data volumes increase, there becomes an increasing need to scale. Having the ability to scale differentiates a thriving business, from one that is overwhelmed and underprepared for growth. However, when data and applications are managed internally, scaling can be complicated, time-intensive, and expensive. Between equipment purchases and growing your infrastructure design, scaling from the inside is a large undertaking for your IT department and your budget. The cloud affords businesses with a unique opportunity to scale as-needed, without the stress or the need for an infrastructure redesign. For instance, third-party providers who offer cloud backup for businesses and enterprises will create a copy of your entire system automatically, backup any files that are created and changed, and allow you to upgrade to a larger plan as your storage needs grow.
Streamline and coordinate
Managing your data from the cloud is just simpler. You backup to one place, and you restore from one place. Rather than pulling your backed up and stored data from multiple devices, you can access it all from the cloud. This means if you lose all your data on one computer, you can purchase a new computer and restore all of your data back exactly as it was, without any long and drawn out processes. And since data is stored in the cloud and accessible from anywhere with a password and an internet connection, it can even improve and streamline global operations.
Reduce human error
By moving to an automated cloud service, like continuous, automatic cloud backup provided by Nordic Backup, you can reduce the likelihood of human error created by manual data management and backups. It’s easy to forget to schedule a backup of your data, delete a file you wish you could bring back, or make an accidental file change you can’t go back in time and undo. With cloud backup, you can prevent each of these scenarios, keeping your data close at hand and always available to you.
Improved recovery abilities
Using the cloud to store and backup your data means that your data can always be recovered. Whether there’s a computer failure, hardware failure, natural disaster, theft, computer virus, or other data loss event, having your data saved in the cloud will allow you to recover it, where physical device storage will not. Even if you’re confident that you have your data saved in all the right places and backed up where you can retrieve it, you may not have the ability to recover it as soon as you need to to keep your business running smoothly. Lost data isn’t the only problem you’ll have to manage when files get deleted; your company will also suffer productivity losses and reputational challenges. By working with a third-party cloud provider, you can recover your data fast. There are even options for zero-downtime recovery if you don’t want to risk losing any time or money when your data becomes unavailable.
The advantages of taking on a cloud-first strategy can improve the way your organization operates. And best of all, getting started is easy. Working in the cloud is as simple as signing up, and syncing your data. You can even get started with 90 days of free cloud backup by taking the Nordic Backup free trial. That means more cost savings and an easy entrance into beginning your cloud-first strategy implementation.
