Cloud computing is still a relatively new technology. Despite being around for approximately two decades, a huge number of businesses are still operating without cloud computing. The benefits of cloud computing are numerous - cost savings, business efficiencies and competitive advantage are just some of the benefits, however, businesses are still reluctant to make the transition.

Those that have made the leap to cloud-based computing solutions are reaping the rewards. In their most recent study, International Data Group found that 81% of organisations have at least one application or a portion of their computing infrastructure in the cloud, up from 73% in 2018.
Dell also revealed in their second annual Global Technology Adoption Index, that organisations actively investing in big data, cloud and mobility have up to 53 per cent higher growth rates compared to those who aren’t using the technologies.

What is cloud computing?

According to Amazon Web Services - a leading provider of cloud computing services, “Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of buying, owning, and maintaining physical data centers and servers, you can access technology services, such as computing power, storage, and databases, on an as-needed basis from a cloud provider like Amazon Web Services (AWS).”

There are of course many other alternatives when it comes to cloud computing services and selecting the right cloud computing provider will depend on a number of factors, including the size of your business, your requirements and your budget.

Who is using cloud computing?

In the early days of cloud computing, it was only really large global brands that were utilising the services of cloud computing, however, today, organisations of all sizes, types and across all industries are using cloud computing for a variety of use cases including:

• * Disaster recovery
• * Email
• * Virtual desktops
• * Software development
• * Big data analytics
• * Security

From financial organisations using the cloud to power real-time fraud detection to the gaming brands delivering online games to millions of players around the world - the power of the cloud is limitless.

Types of cloud computing

Cloud computing underpins a huge variety of services and includes consumer services like Gmail right through to services that allow enterprises to host all their data and run applications in the cloud.

According to NEC, most cloud computing services fall into four broad categories: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), serverless, and software as a service (SaaS). These are sometimes called the cloud computing “stack” because they build on top of one another.

Benefits of cloud computing

The benefits of cloud computing are numerous and wide-ranging depending on your business needs. Here are four of the most common benefits of cloud computing:

Cost savings

Despite concerns over the initial costs of moving your business operations to the cloud, the cost savings in the long term far outweigh the initial set-up costs. The cloud allows you to remove high-value capital expenses from your balance sheets such as data centres and physical servers and replace this by paying for IT when you consume it. The cloud is particularly good for expanding businesses as you only pay for the storage you actually use. As you grow, you simply add more storage, giving you lots of flexibility but without wasting your budget before you need it.

Security

Security can be a major concern for businesses contemplating moving their operations to the cloud. If your data is not stored on your own servers, securely on-site, how can you trust that your data will be stored securely? The truth is, that cloud security is often much more secure than in-house systems. In-house, IT teams often divide their time between a huge range of tasks of which security is just one, whereas, with cloud solutions, there is typically a dedicated security team that looks solely at security. With an increase in ransomware attacks and other cybersecurity threats, there has never been a better time to move your IT operations to the cloud. RapidScale reported that 94% of businesses saw an improvement in security after switching to the cloud.

Agility

The cloud gives businesses access to a wide range of technologies, enabling you to innovate faster and build almost anything you can imagine. Organisations can quickly spin up resources as you need them - no need to consider whether you have the capacity on your in-house server. Businesses that are really benefiting front the cloud are quickly utilising the cloud for infrastructure services such as compute, storage and databases to Internet of Things, machine learning, data lakes, analytics and more. This agility gives you the freedom to be more creative, knowing that you will also only pay for the services you use, helping you to budget better for IT requirements.

Competitive advantage

Organisations that have made the switch to cloud computing are able to use cloud services to gain a competitive advantage. Leading online casino Betway, uses Microsoft Azure for big data analysis, “Our big data pipeline, including feeding Tableau extracts for the business allows for real-time cross-platform decisions to be made, while the data lake makes it easy for the AI and Data Science teams to access the data they need. With a new focus on machine learning and predictive analytics, we want our stakeholders to be able to make accurate estimations about sports betting and player behaviours.”

In a study conducted by Verizon, they found that 77% of businesses felt that cloud technology gives them a competitive advantage, and 16% believe this advantage is significant.

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