Moving IT infrastructures to a cloud-based solution over using a traditional on-premise solution
More and more IT infrastructures are moving to the cloud, to make them flexible and scalable. Using a cloud solution has a number of benefits, and the good news is that they’re becoming more cost effective.
The benefits of cloud infrastructure
Some of the business benefits of using a cloud infrastructure are:
- Efficiency and cost reduction. By taking a cloud-approach, you don’t have to pay for equipment outright, thus reducing your capital expenditure costs. With this type of approach you typically pay per month for the services you use, including the IT infrastructure, electricity and minimal downtime, because there’s no need for a large in-house IT team to manage it. Most of these costs fall within your contract. Cloud-based solutions are ideal for businesses of all sizes, with flexible pricing
- Data security. In 2019, Forbes reported that in the first six months of 2019, 3,800 data breaches occurred. Implementing security measures for an on-premise solution is costly, but it’s standard with a cloud-based approach. You can also install additional security measures at a reasonable cost, to secure access to your data, such as multifactor authentication.
- The use of smartphones and other mobile devices is part and parcel of most people’s route into accessing corporate data. Cloud-based environments are much more flexible than on-premise solutions. For example, employees with access rights can access the information and systems they need, as long as they have an internet connection
- Disaster recovery. Losing data is every business worse nightmare. Using cloud-based solutions within a data centre guarantees that your data is backed up to a certain extent. This also means that as your data is hosted within a cloud environment, it is always available regardless of whether your computer breaks
- Knowledge is power and giving access to your most valuable information can be detrimental. With cloud-based environments, you can monitor who has access to your environment, restrict access, as well as manage permissions and user roles, helping to increase productivity
Types of cloud infrastructure deployments
There are three main types of cloud infrastructure deployments, and the one you choose depends on your requirements.
- Private cloud. With a private cloud environment, your services are hosted in a data centre that utilises hardware dedicated to you. This means that only you can access the hardware within your environment. This is usually more expensive, but it depends on your requirements and regulatory requirements that apply to your industry. IT Backbone has our own private cloud
- Public cloud. Similar to private cloud; however, you share the hardware in that environment with others further reducing your costs. This is safe and secure like private cloud, and while you are sharing the hardware with others, all of your business data is kept separate, safe and secure from other clients
- Hybrid cloud. Hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment that uses a mix of on-premise, private cloud and third-party, public cloud services with orchestration between the two platforms. This gives businesses greater flexibility that doesn’t want to adopt a fully private cloud or public cloud approach
Things you need to know before making a decision
Before making any decisions on moving to the cloud, you need to think about the following:
- What systems you currently use
- How your current IT infrastructure is managed
- Whether you have an in-house IT team
- How most of your employees access company data
- Whether you have a mix of remote working or multiple locations
- How you store and backup data
- How quickly patches and updates are applied to your hardware
Talk to us
To find out more about moving to IT Backbone’s private cloud environment, get in touch with us today.
