Cloud solutions are now part of most IT infrastructures and are regarded as being key to staying competitive. Choosing which offering is best suited to your business is important. In this article, we look at the practicalities of selecting cloud options and provide some guidance on how you can make the right choice.
The benefits of cloud solutions
Before looking at how you make the right choice, it’s worth revisiting what you can expect to get from adopting business cloud solutions.
Predictable costs
The most obvious advantage is cost predictability. By shifting to cloud-based apps and services, instead of buying software applications, you can pay a subscription for them. And rather than buying servers and storage outright, you can pay only for what you use. You can reduce or even eliminate the need to purchase, manage, and maintain costly on-premises infrastructure, although you will of course, still need client devices (laptops, tablets, desktops, workstations), to access cloud-based, and networking equipment.
Software subscriptions give you a clear and fixed cost per user and overall. And with pay-as-you-go billing for hardware, you are only billed for what you use and don’t have underused capacity for which you’ve already paid.
Flexibility
The cloud is also much more flexible – for the business and for staff. You can scale up or down as your needs change. This is ideal for growing businesses of those that work to seasonal fluctuations. People can work from anywhere and have access to the same apps and resources they would in the office. And it’s very easy for teams to meet online, wherever they are working that day.
Security
Security should not be a concern as, to be credible, all cloud services must be inherently secure. If a provider is known and established, it will have adequate protection in place. Even so, it’s worth checking up on what kind of service level agreement (SLA) they offer.
What cloud solution is best for my organisation?
Public cloud
Public cloud services, which are typically offered by big-name providers such as AWS, Google, Microsoft and others, are delivered across the public Internet and have the advantages of being highly accessible, scalable, and flexible.
Private cloud
Alternatively, you can run you own private cloud which can only be accessed by your business. This could be hosted on your own premises or by a specialist provider with a direct link to your business. This can be just as flexible as a public cloud service but will give you more security and control. If keeping data in the UK or Ireland is important for you or there are other regulations or compliance rules you need to meet, this can be a better option.
Hybrid cloud
A hybrid cloud solution, as the name suggests, will combine elements of both public and private. You may also come across community clouds, which are designed for organisations that have a shared interests or concerns – in certain industries where there are special regulatory or compliance requirements, for example.
Cloud ‘As a service’ options
Cloud solutions are usually offered ‘as a service’ and fall into three main categories. Most businesses will use SaaS and may also take advantage of IaaS to provide more scalable capacity. PaaS will be relevant only if you develop your own apps and online services.
SaaS
Software as a service (SaaS) the most common form of cloud offering. The software application is delivered via the cloud ‘as a service’ rather than from an on-premises server.
IaaS
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), describes the delivery of computing and storage resources.
PaaS
Platform as a service (PaaS) options provide a way to run development, testing, and deployment of applications in the cloud.
How to choose the right cloud solution for your business
With cloud, you should take the same approach as you would for any other type of solution. There are various aspects you need to consider and should start with a proper assessment of the specific business need. Getting specialist assistance in scoping out your requirements may be advisable.
- Storage – You need to consider the volume of data you will need to store and how much that’s likely to expand.
- Data processing – How much processing power will be needed to cope with the applications and services you need to run?
- Scalability – On what kind of the timescale and urgency might any scaling-up of either compute power or storage capacity be required?
- Integrations – Do you need to integrate with existing apps? Will the service allow that to happen.
- Compliance – Do you need to meet industry compliance standards or other rules?
- Data Sovereignty – Do you need to ensure that data is held on severs in this country or within Europe?
Choosing the right cloud provider
For most business, the most important criteria in selecting a cloud provider will be reliability. They should be tried and trusted and offer good SLAs. You may want to look in more depth at what provisions they have for any kind of crisis or service outage. With respect to security, you may want to think about specific features, such as data encryption, how users are identified, and how services and information are accessed. The way that data is managed and backed up should also be on your checklist.
The way that the provider charges for services will also be a major factor, of course. It is worth spending time to understand exactly how the consumption charging model works and what costs you might incur should you want to scale up usage or capacity or make use of additional services and support. Overall, you will want to achieve a good TCO with your cloud usage.
You may also want to explore what the options are for scaling down your usage, if that’s likely to happen at any time.
Finally, look at how well the provider’s approach is aligned with your long-term requirements and how any investment and commitment you make will be protected.
Special considerations for SMBs
For SMBs, the choice of cloud service is even more critical as it’s entirely probable that a small business will have a high degree of dependency on their cloud provider. Critically, is it affordable and will it meet your long-term needs? Cloud solutions that require zero or minimal up-front commitment and have a simple pricing structure will be preferable in most cases. Troubleshooting support is important too, especially for small businesses with limited or no IT expertise or cloud experience. For the same reasons, ease of use and management may also be a factor.
The expert view
Andy Brown, technical services director – Advanced Solutions, TD SYNNEX says that while it will always be down to the individual needs of an organisation, maintaining flexibility with your cloud choices is important.
‘Obviously, you need to commit to using a public, private, or hybrid approach as befits your needs, but also keep in mind that your needs can change. Your internal priorities or structure may change or external factors that are not under your control may cause you to look again at where you place workplace and how they are managed. Service prices can change as well, and that may also be a factor.
‘Our advice, always, would be to consult and work with a trusted partner that has expertise and experience in advising you on your choices and who can help you manage cloud resources as well. This will make it easier to plan ahead, build flexibility into your infrastructure, and migrate workloads safely and securely, if and as that becomes necessary.’
The cloud solution that makes sense for your business
Choosing a cloud solution is largely a matter of common sense. It should be based on pre-defined criteria that you have decided upon and conducted neutrally, without bias, and with clear business objectives in mind. It is important to have a good understanding of the different options. Get it right and your business will benefit from having added agility and the ability to adapt more easily to changing market conditions and customer demands.
