In today’s business environment, the data center is a required asset to support business operations. However, not all companies are able to build their own data center – and for those who have them, some are unable to manage them properly and efficiently. To build and manage a data center, a company usually allocates a significant amount of IT professionals and resources. With the increasing complexity of the data center – and more IT professionals required to manage it, maintaining productivity has become a new challenge.
Technology’s rapid development has brought many alternative solutions for companies to run and grow their business. The same thing applies for cloud technology, which has become the new trend in data center management. Cloud service enables companies to gain benefits from the data center without having to build and manage their own data center. Companies can focus more on their core business and they can quickly respond to new opportunities as they arise. Aside from productivity in business development, with the right formula – and the right cloud strategy, an organization can also maximize its Return on Investment (ROI).
An intensified competitive landscape has forced companies to be agile and quick when responding to changes in the market place. A flexible and tailored cloud solution can provide functional benefits that will allow an organization to be agile in how they conduct their business. Cloud service, as the new generation of data center, offers agility, scalability and budget efficiencies. In addition, the cloud service plays a strategic role as the foundation for digital business in the future.
Selecting a cloud service provider that is aligned with the company’s business is not just a matter of location, picking names from a list of providers, or by using a number of parameters on a specification sheet. The success of a cloud service deployment will depend on how the provider delivers the right service for the company’s needs, with minimum risk and without sacrificing performance.
Here are the top four reasons CIOs should consider adopting cloud services:
1. Business agility: A flexible cloud service supports a company in developing innovative products and therefore provides agility for the company to remain competitive in a rapidly changing market. A good system has built-in virtualization, with easy to install applications and supports mobile workloads
2. Cost effective: Using an optimized virtualization server will bring capital expenditure (capex) efficiencies for the company
3. Digital business: Gartner forecast that 35 billion devices will be connected to the internet in 2020. To serve this explosive growth, cloud service will be the foundation for digital business in the future
4. Data security: Enterprise data security is an important decisive factor for cloud service. The service provider must have up-to-date and periodically reviewed security standards. Security components that must be reviewed include firewall, antivirus, multi-factor user authentication, data encryption and security audits.
By looking at the current trend, IT professionals must prepare the IT infrastructure strategic plan to anticipate explosive growth – by using cloud to support business performance through speed, flexibility and a good level of security. Stepping into the cloud as the next generation of data center will bring a company’s business into a new, agile, productive and cost effective IT environment.