Most small business taps cloud computing for their business operations, particularly the Software as a Service (SaaS). They tend to send emails by using the Outlook platform, they manage customer concerns and relationships through Contractually or utilize Basecamp for keeping tabs on their projects.
While this is undoubtedly a quick option that literally saves time and money, there are also other options that could still be better and more appropriate that are specifically designed to be conducive for small businesses.
A growing number of small enterprises today have started adopting the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) category under cloud computing. It provides general users with IT infrastructure such as network equipment, email services with data recovery, operating systems as well as storage and data centers.
When it comes to finding scalability, there is no doubt that more and more business operators are resorting to renting infrastructure for the needs of their business.
Jumping your way into the latter option would definitely give you tons of benefits. And if you are searching for just the right reasons why, here are practical and interesting things you should know about.
1. Accessing Enterprise-Level Equipment with Small Business Investment
This is one of the primary noted benefits when it comes to IaaS. With this infrastructure, even with small and limited budget, small businesses could simply get access to entry-level equipment. What is even more interesting is that, some businesses would no longer have to invest a capital for them to purchase new necessary hardware.
This benefit would just give you the right performance booster while also avoiding paying overhead expenses for expensive services while still reaping the benefits. Instead of deciding whether you would prefer a lightning-fast server to work out with your web hosting or databases, you can just have access to high-end services designed to work in a distributed resource environment.
While this technology favors small businesses, it can also appeal to large enterprises around the globe because of its undoubted scalability and cost-efficiency.
2. No More Extra Charges for Paying Computing Network/Power You Do not Need
The IaaS model is based on a pay-as-you-go scheme, which is similar to other kinds of cloud service providers. In this, you will not have to pay for computing power that you know would not be necessary for your operations.
In this way, you have the full control of scaling your services in a manner that would just meet your small business’ needs. Moreover, choosing IaaS would also help you to avoid costly network technicians, which is a big necessity, especially if you are planning on managing your own IT support.
Relying on IaaS provider would simply mean that you are responsible for deploying your applications and the cloud computing service would assume the responsibility of making necessary hardware upgrades, figuring out network outages and fixing hardware issues.
If your business’ video goes viral online and your website is suddenly hit with a 500% increase in the product orders, a quick and simple call with your provider would enable you to upgrade your computing power as well on the spot. Of course, not all businesses are equal, that’s why we’re seeing terms like ‘hybrid cloud’ more and more lately.
3. Interoperability
Although IaaS, SaaS and PaaS are three different forms of cloud computing, they can simply fit together in a “stack,” a term coined by the US National Institute of Standards in Technology (NIST).
If company is planning on taking most of it’s budget for infrastructure and convert it to cloud, then this could be a great option as IT Infrastructure in the cloud would operate seamlessly with development of business applications and platforms.
Imagine “stack” as a transportation network; the infrastructure is the road and the platform is presented by the car that drives on the road, the people and goods that are carried by the car are the software and the information exchange and stored in the cloud.
4. For Your Website and Company Intranet, IaaS Picks Up Cloud-Based Servers
With IaaS, all web and application services are managed at the cloud host’s data center made available for use whenever necessary. In the traditional setting, often a massive in-house data center is in business’ premises.
This requires monitoring, maintenance and of course, security. The former gives benefits and convenience, which can also be applied to e-mail services containing confidential data regarding business, employees and clients.
5. Enhanced Network Infrastructure Yet Less Hardware
Aside from the main points mentioned above, IaaS can offer you a better bandwidth setup as compared to the facilities available in your building. Take note that most companies do not always have the access to high-speed internet connection.
With IaaS, your servers would be in the cloud, hence the bandwidth you would be using when you connect would be at that of the data center and not in your office. Remember that all computing is done in the data center, which is why you would be relieving yourself with the hassle of connecting to a good internet access in the building.
Furthermore, there are also IaaS providers that allow companies to install their own development platforms and operating systems on their own or they may also provide PaaS technique as well.
Through the advanced cloud computing modeling opened for small businesses and even large enterprises, it has opened opportunities for companies to save even more. On the other hand, you should keep in mind that more data in the cloud would mean more data that have to be analyzed.
In this part, companies such as CloudPhysics and Microsoft could help you out in making sense of the data allowing you to understand how they behave, how they work, which are very crucial when it comes to making decisions that are related to your overall business operations.
Basically, if you are a budding business and would want to be more practical and wiser when it comes to data storage, security and network assurance, various cloud computing models presented above could come in handy for your overall operations.
See more at AIIM.org