In times of crisis, businesses seek solutions that allow for continuity. By cloudifying their systems, organizations of all sizes from across sectors can create the necessary conditions for their operations to run smoothly and teams to remain productive.
Whether you go full cloud native or opt for a “lift and shift” approach, there are numerous benefits that cloudification can provide if you still host systems on-premise, especially given the current volatile economic climate. Here’s how cloudification sets organizations up to maintain operational continuity when uncertainty hits and business results are threatened.
Cloudification removes the need for human presence
Many organizations still host their own in-house servers, which require engineers to be on-site to be able to monitor and maintain them. However, when difficult times hit, certain team members might not be able to - or shouldn’t - be physically present where the servers are.
At times like these, either the servers are left in danger by not being tended to, or the employees themselves are put in danger by attending to them. On-premise systems prevent a smooth transition into becoming fully remote when circumstances require it.
When systems are hosted in the cloud, all of this maintenance and monitoring is taken care of by the provider. Businesses needn't worry about the physical monitoring of their servers and the need for in-person maintenance if unexpected circumstances arise.
Cloudification also allows for easier remote working as teams can securely access applications from their own devices using secure cloud platforms. For example, financial services company Edelweiss Group, which employs 9,000 people, is facilitating remote work by providing its employees with access to internal applications via Azure and AWS, using the security platforms of Zscaler and Microsoft.
Cloudification lets you scale easily
When servers run on-premise, there is no way to intuitively scale up when demand requires or scale down when traffic is lower. Running them in the cloud lets your systems auto-scale, meaning the impact of unexpected circumstances won’t leave you without processing power that you need, or paying for higher capacity than are required at any one time.
Let’s say an ecommerce business experiences a sudden uptick in demand for some of their products due to external events. The platform’s traffic will skyrocket, and they’ll need to scale up resources immediately. For example, in the US online sales of home fitness equipment went up by 55% in a week - a surge like this might cause the site of an unprepared business to crash. However, the contrary could also be true. External factors could lead to a drop in demand, in which case they would want to scale down and avoid unnecessary costs.
In uncertain times, all businesses should be prioritizing cash flow and minimizing expenses. Cloudification is a great way to do this: Customers of Oracle cloud infrastructure typically save 30-50% overall by moving their applications to the cloud. In fact, cost optimization is the primary reason for 47% of enterprises’ cloud migration.
Cloudification offers better services
Businesses that choose to cloudify in times of crisis will also gain new access to services of the cloud provider. This includes everything from hosting the servers to additional services such as ML, computer vision, business intelligence, and hundreds of others.
AWS, whose customers include Netflix, Facebook, and Baidu, offers numerous services and products which cover a spectrum of what any company might need during its digital transformation process. For any organization looking to maintain continuity during unpredictable times, having access to these services will allow them to pivot their strategy and adapt when they need to by having resources at their fingertips.
For example, a retail business might need to quickly build their online shop as in-store sales dive. In this case, they could use Amazon Lightsail to rapidly deploy an open source solution, provided that they already have their stock management application in the cloud. They can shape this solution properly later on, but a quick deployment when an unexpected event hits helps the business avert the crisis and remain operational.
Another scenario where these services prove invaluable would be in the case of a company working with legacy applications. These applications often require a particular hardware and network/OS configuration, making it impractical - if not impossible - to simply install on employees’ laptops to enable them to work from home. After migrating these applications to the cloud, this company could use a service such as Amazon AppStream to access them securely from remote devices located across the globe.
For many companies, transitioning to the cloud might have long been on the cards, and it is unexpected circumstances that accelerate the decision. Whether the choice to migrate comes from necessity or simply a better understanding of the cloud’s business benefits during uncertain times, organizations should know that the switch to cloud computing will deliver value long after normalcy resumes.