IT Services Consultant, Ken Toumey, has his head in the clouds...and you should too!
Surely you’ve heard a lot about the benefits of cloud-based technology solutions for business; the improvements in collaboration and file sharing, the easy scalability, reliability and redundancy built into using cloud servers. All these benefits provide strong rationale to consider moving to the cloud. But for the right organizations ready to make a full leap to the cloud, there are other benefits as well and these benefits focus on dollars and sense. There are lots of ways the cloud can reduce expenses.
The first thing to realize when considering how the cloud can save you money is that going to the cloud is really all about sharing: sharing servers, sharing data centers, sharing management staff time, sharing resources, sharing power, sharing time, etc. Remember in kindergarten when they taught you that sharing is good? Well they were right! Saving money on the cloud starts and ends with the fact that sharing resources brings economies of scale that result in lower costs for your business. Here are just a few cost-saving examples:
- Less Power – Cloud computing means less electricity. Cloud providers maximize their utility efficiency in order to drive their margins and your business enjoys some of that cost reduction. When you move your server and other hardware and software to the cloud, you are not paying for that electricity on site; you are not paying for that extra air conditioning, nor for energy spent powering idle server capacity.
- Less People – Cloud computing means less direct IT management staff on premise. Cloud providers take on the management expertise, time, knowledge that your organization might be already paying for in house. Staffing is often a large expense in most organizations, pushing those costs offsite to a cloud provider means that those costs are lower for you.
- Less Capital – Cloud computing means you are renting or leasing, not buying hardware and other equipment necessary to house, control and service your IT architecture. Cloud providers put up the capital to purchase the servers, etc. that drive your chosen cloud solution. You are merely renting or subscribing to that service which means you have zero capital outlay. That allows you to direct your capital budget toward more direct business building activities.
- Less Redundancy – Cloud computing means that in most cases your organization does not have to pay extra for the cardinal rule of technology which is—Have a Backup. Cloud providers have built redundancy into their offerings. They have your data in at least two geographically dispersed data centers, so you have no reason to have that first server on hand, let alone that backup server!
Any change in business strategy, including where to house your technology, should involve a great deal of analysis and consultation with experts. If you would like to learn more about saving money with the cloud and see if your organization can reduce expenses and improve productivity with such a move, the professionals at IT Radix are ready to help.
First published in our November 2014 IT Radix Resource newsletter
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