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Why you should consider switching to cloud computing?

As businesses look to modernize their operations and bring more efficiency to their processes, cloud computing is a natural fit. Cloud-based technology has made it possible for organizations of any size or industry to access the same technology resources from anywhere at any time — with just a computer, an internet connection, and a supported browser.

But not everyone can operate efficiently in this digital age. That’s where the best cloud computing companies come in. These enterprises are the driving force behind progress in the industry, continually working to make cloud computing more secure, reliable and cost-effective for businesses of all sizes.

Here’s what you need to know about cloud computing in 2022:

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is defined as “the delivery of computer resources on demand, through various channels, and on a pay-as-you-go basis.” Essentially, it is about rethinking how businesses use technology. Instead of having IT operations that are solely located in one physical location, or in a single business, cloud companies are able to use a network of remote servers to provide computing resources to customers.

Because the technology is distributed and accessible via the internet, it is accessible from anywhere. Cloud computing is an ideal fit for companies that have limited resources (both financially and physically). It also makes sense for companies that have a need for a certain amount of flexibility, as the network of remote servers can be configured to meet those needs on a specific day’s notice.

Who are the best cloud computing companies?

Cloud computing is going mainstream and the best cloud companies are winning customers. The Microsoft-IBM partnership to bring cloud offerings to the masses is yielding results. Cloud providers are now able to offer their services at a lower price than in-house IT operations, making them more attractive to private businesses. In order to remain competitive, it’s essential to stay up-to-date with the latest cloud strategies and implement best practices. The best cloud companies understand their customers’ needs, and don’t just blindly follow trends. They are also leaders in their industry, and are continually working to make cloud computing more secure, reliable, and cost-effective for businesses of all sizes.

How do you become a top cloud computing company?

Cloud computing is a rapidly evolving market. In order to succeed in this rapidly changing environment, you must stay on top of industry trends, as well as best practices and emerging technologies. You also need to have a clear vision and a strong business model. Your business model should focus on creating value for your customers.

One of the best ways to do this is to focus on offering services that solve real problems for your industry or category. By doing so, you will be able to better understand the pain points of your customers and provide solutions that solve those problems. Creating a strong brand identity is also key to being a top cloud computing company. A strong brand identity will help you connect with your customers and establish a reputation for providing value that will help you rise above the competition.

Create value for your customers

Building trust with your customers is essential to success in any industry. And as the cloud market segment expands, you’ll need to establish trust with your customers even more. The best cloud computing companies understand this, and are creating value for their customers.

By providing seamless, affordable, and secure cloud services, the best cloud companies are making it easier for businesses to grow, innovate, and succeed. It’s important to remember that you can’t just offer your customers a self-service experience.

You must provide value in other areas as well, such as IT support, security, and operations. This will help you stand out among your competitors and establish trust with your customers.

Secure your data

Cloud services are increasingly being used for sensitive business operations, such as data storage or archiving. While this is not unique to cloud computing, it is an area that is important to focus on in order to stay competitive.

Data security is a significant concern for businesses, especially those operating in regulated industries. The best cloud computing companies understand this, and take it seriously.

They implement strong data security practices and fail closed-door auditing and compliance tests more than once. In doing so, they are helping their customers safeguard sensitive information and avoid fines or other penalties that are often associated with violating regulations.

Build for flexibility and interoperability

Flexibility and interoperability are also important when it comes to staying competitive. These are key components of the software-as-a-service model, which is the most common type of cloud architecture. While it’s important to focus on these areas when it comes to the best cloud computing companies, they are also extremely important when it comes to any type of business.

In order to thrive in a rapidly evolving world, organisations need to be nimble and able to quickly adapt to new situations. When it comes to customers, you must be able to understand their needs, and then quickly provide a solution that meets those needs. It’s also important to remember that the best cloud companies are not just focused on their customers’ current needs. They are also thinking about the future and how they can create value for customers down the road.

Bottom line

Cloud computing has become a critical component of business operations, allowing firms to access a wide range of computing resources from anywhere in the world. The best cloud computing companies are those that offer reliable, flexible, and cost-effective services, while also being secure, compliant, and predictable.

It’s important to remember that the best cloud companies are not just big companies with huge budgets. They’re small businesses, with one to five employees, that are using cloud computing to improve efficiency and build their business. For more information on how you can leverage the benefits of cloud computing, contact the best cloud computing companies to learn more about how they can help you succeed in this rapidly evolving market.

Could the limits of cloud hosting be reached during the pandemic?

Last week, Microsoft’s collaborative cloud service, Teams, was unable to withstand the onslaught of requests from millions of users who were called upon to telework en masse around the world with the COVID-19 health crisis. “2020 will be a terrible year for IT services,” warned the IT research and analysis company, GlobalData. However, while declines in demand are to be expected, the need for cloud resources is expected to continue to explode, driven not only by the current crisis and teleworking constrained for many, but also the acceleration of digital transformation projects leading inevitably more and more companies hitherto reluctant to throw themselves into the vast ocean of the multicloud, to go there.

“As companies stop their brick and mortar operations and, where possible, move to a remote workforce, it’s clear how important the cloud is to business continuity. Any organization that actively resists digitization now faces a harsh reality. This puts cloud providers in a strong position,” said Chris Drake, senior analyst, Global IT Technology and Software at GlobalData. The consequence for cloud providers is far from trivial, as it raises the question of their ability to support the rising burden of remote access.

Creating Impacted Azure Virtual Machines

Could the situation become critical? There are individual signals to be taken into consideration: in Europe, for example, many Azure customers have reported capacity limits for opening new virtual machines or even starting them up. However, until now, sizeable incumbent cloud providers offering computing, storage, and networking services have been better able to handle the increased usage. “Leading public cloud providers, such as Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud, have built huge global networks that are incredibly well equipped to handle traffic spikes. So, not surprisingly, we have seen virtually no COVID-19-related impact within their networks. Considering the number of outages detected over the last six weeks, the trend line remains relatively stable globally, with only a slight increase in the United States,” ThousandEyes says.

It remains to monitor the evolution of this trend over time closely, knowing that for other IT and telecom service operators, the situation appears more worrying. “Failure incidents within large UCaaS provider networks are relatively rare; however, the recent massive increase in usage highlights the current design limitations. Capacity would be increased across the board to meet new service demands,” ThousandEyes warned in a note. Over the past 24 hours, 31 outages in 23 locations have been reported worldwide, affecting a wide variety of players ranging from Akamai to Cogent to AT&T. In this context, in France in particular, organizations such as Arcep and the French Telecommunications Federation have taken the lead in urging major video service providers – led by Netflix and Google YouTube – to make efforts to limit their bandwidth consumption. A call that was heard even in the ears of Walt Disney, who agreed to postpone the launch of its Disney+ streaming service by 15 days in France, but not in 7 other European countries such as Great Britain, Germany, and Italy, despite being cruelly affected by the coronavirus SARS-Cov-2.

Nvidia wants to partner with telecom operators for its cloud gaming service

The cloud gaming market is experiencing a strong resurgence and attracts the lusts of heavyweights such as Google or Microsoft. To compete against those giants, Nvidia is seeking to create an alliance with telecom operators, working on the streaming of virtual reality games.

Nvidia gave news of its cloud gaming service, GeForce Now, at its GTC 2019 conference held March 18-21 in San Jose, California. In particular, it will benefit from the new RTX servers that the company unveiled at the meeting. They will provide the service with the capabilities of a GeForce RTX 2080, with ray tracing and DLSS management.

Technical Details That Still Need To Be Improved

We did several game sessions, and not all of them were perfect. In particular, we felt lag in the movement of controllers and tracking problems, but these would be the result of interference from Lighthouse tags (a common problem with Vive headsets at conventions) and not from the cloud service.

We were able to play despite these setbacks, but even when the tracking seemed correct, the experience seemed slower and weaker than locally. Note that this VR stream feature is still under development and that we will, therefore, wait to test a more advanced version to judge its interest.

Streaming For Virtual Reality

This computing power will also allow GeForce Now to offer virtual reality experiences. NVidia made several demonstrations during the event.

The system uses the HEVC compression format to reduce bandwidth. With RTX servers, the recommended bandwidth is 50 Mb/s, knowing that the system can operate in degraded mode up to 15 Mb/s.

An Alliance With Telecom Operators For Cloud Gaming

However, Nvidia already announces that it is working with telecom operators and electronics manufacturers, in this case, AT&T and HTC, to enable wireless headsets to access content from the cloud. Nvidia refers here to the cloud gaming demonstration given by HTC at Mobile World Congress 2019. The Taiwanese company simulated a 5G connection to its hub, then a Wi-Fi connection from the hub to the Vive Focus Plus.

Speaking of partners, the main announcement for GeForce Now was undoubtedly the creation of the “GeForce Now Alliance” program. HTC and its 5G hub are part of it, but Nvidia seems to target telecom operators in particular. Its objective is to expand the number of data centers in the GeForce Now network, with Nvidia itself having only 15 in the United States and Europe. The first two operators to be partners in the program are Softbank in Japan and LG U+ in South Korea. Both will deploy RTX servers by the end of the year.

Dfinity blockchain decentralized cloud project

Launched last year by researchers, universities and cryptography specialists, the Dfinity decentralized cloud project using blockchain technology has succeeded in attracting investors in 2018. Polychain Capital and Andreessen Horowitz have put 61 million dollars on the table to support this project, promising to reduce the cost of the cloud infrastructure by 90% compared to Amazon or Google solutions.

A decentralized cloud network

The project for a decentralized cloud network based on blockchain technology, Dfinity, has come out of the woodwork. Launched in 2017 by researchers, universities (including the famous École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and European cryptography specialists (Dominic Williams, Timo Hanke, Ben Lynn…), Dfinity is a project full of promise and we will keep an eye on it for you in 2019. Among them, the task of creating a new cloud model that reduces the cost of business applications running on it by nearly 90% compared to the pricing of suppliers such as AWS and Google and with extremely short processing times.

Last October, a – small – test network using 500 nodes would have made it possible to finalize calculations in one second compared to 10 minutes for a network based on the Ethereum network. Of course this is still a much higher output than what the Bitcoin network is able to offer (click here for achat de bitcoin) in 2018 and beyond!

“The Dfinity network produces a unique “Internet computer” with unlimited capacity. You do not need to manage individual computer instances, nor do you need to copy data into a database in case one of your computer instances is restarted or blocked. Instead, you let the Internet computer take care of everything for you… It is unstoppable and also contributes to many modern requirements such as data privacy. Co-hosting enterprise systems on a single, massive virtual computer ensures, where desirable, much better interoperability,” said Dominic Williams, Scientific Director of the Dfinity project.

Discussions with hosts and various suppliers

The Dfinity project seems well on its way to becoming more powerful. It has just succeeded in obtaining substantial funds to ensure its development – 61 million dollars – from renowned investors, Polychain Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. The is a very bullish news for the company!

To scale the company up, Dfinity project leaders say they are in discussion with renown hosting providers to convince them to use their decentralized blockchain-based cloud technology infrastructure. Discussions with hardware manufacturers are also underway to produce specialized servers to “mine” Dfinity. With the capital and funds raised, the project’s promoters also hope to build about twenty datacenters and deploy them around the world to kick off this next-generation of cloud network, which should not be launched before several months.

Find more about the Dfinity Blockchain project here:

WordPress 5.0 is here with new features such as its editor “Gutenberg”

This is a known fact in the web industry, WP is the leading Content Management System powering close to 33% of the market. We felt that we had to introduce this new major release to our audience!

Sites using the WordPress or CMS management system will be able to take advantage of the latest version. After weeks of testing, the final version of WordPress 5.0 is now available and can be applied immediately, even if it is recommended to perform some tests beforehand, to see that it does not get stuck anywhere!

The editors of 30% of the sites using WordPress CMS will be delighted to know that WordPress version 5.0 is available and that it brings with it a lot of new features, with a continuous trend towards customization and the arrival of the editor Gutenberg.

The significant change brought by WordPress 5.0 is its editor Gutenberg

Matt Mullenweg, the co-author of WordPress, explains that the choice of Gutenberg editor is a desire to simplify the job so that even a newcomer to WordPress can start with peace of mind.

So far, the WordPress editor has responded very well to the use that editors or site designers have made of it, but we must admit that it was designed for text. However, the content has become increasingly multimedia over the years. From now on, it is necessary to integrate tweets, cards, videos, make photo collages, and insert GIFs and much more. Therefore, it was required a new editor to adapt to the current reality and get out of this soup of text including shortcuts at HTML code level.

Other new features in WordPress 5.0

The new CMS includes a new default theme called Twenty-Nine, which adapts to the block system. On the other hand, it is probably stupid to say, but finally, it is possible to view directly from the editor, which will display on the site, it avoids a lot of coming and going in the preview function to make changes — an ergonomics of work and a saving of time, which are very noticeable.

By the way, the other advantage of this theme and the block system is that you will no longer experience these unpleasant moments or a small change in detail causes interruptions in the entire display of the page.

Many of the new features are mainly for developers, and the list is long, so here is the official link.

As always, WordPress 5.0 is available on the official wordpress.org website or from the WordPress CMS administration of your site. A word of advice before switching to another version of WordPress, do a series of tests beforehand because obviously, this could have certain consequences at all levels, from design to theme to plugins. It’s best to be

Security and Macintosh Infrastructures

Contrary to an idea widely spread and skilfully maintained by Apple advertisements, macOS is not totally immune to viruses and certainly not immune to any aggression, as we will see.

Without being alarmist, to say that an antivirus is useless on Mac, as we often read and hear it, would be to go a little fast. It is important to understand that:

Viruses are only a sub-category of malware (malware) that can infect our Macs.
A good “antivirus” is not limited to the detection of viruses in the strict sense, but to any form of malware (see our antivirus suggestions at the end of this article).

We have tested the best mac os antivirus software for Macintoshs, and here we show you the results. Intego, Norton, Sophos, Avira, Kaspersky, ESET… Read our list of winners!

Viruses on Mac: should you protect your computer?

Macs are commonly considered more secure than PCs, and rightly so. The Unix operating system of Apple products has many firewalls that restrict access to certain security areas of the computer.

Besides, compared to PCs, Macs represent only a tiny fraction of the PC market. As a result, pragmatic malware developers are less likely to tackle them.

However, Apple computers are not impervious to all malware. This malware (viruses, spyware, Trojans, etc.) is intended to hijack your private information or take possession of your computer for criminal and financial purposes.

It is therefore advisable to protect your computer, whatever its brand.
To surf the Internet with complete peace of mind, read our ranking of the best antivirus products for Mac!

Mac Antivirus: how to choose the best antivirus for your Apple products?

Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac

The absolute protection. Designed for Mac.

Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac integrates the most advanced cybersecurity technologies in the world. Enjoy your Mac safely.

Choose a solution that protects more than 500 MILLION users.

The effectiveness of antivirus is measured by its ability to protect your computer from malware. To compare the different antiviruses presented here, we used a VMware Fusion virtual machine running under macOS 10.13.3 and downloaded ten viruses: BadBunny, Clapzok, FileCoder, Inqtana, Koobface, Macareno, MineSteal, Renepo, WeaponX, and XcodeGhost.

For each software, we tested the programmed scans and virus detection in real time.

Norton Security for Mac

This year, Norton is back in our top 3 best anti-viruses for Mac since it was able to identify 100% of the attacks during our test. Of course, it took him several scans to detect the XcodeGhost virus, but it’s better than many other programs.

Norton is easy to install and comes with two extensions for Safari: Safe web, which blocks your access to dangerous websites, and Identity Safe, which manages your passwords.

The antivirus is discreet on your computer and, if you wish, you can program your scans or launch them manually.

Sophos Antivirus

Sophos has detected all ten viruses in our test, which is particularly impressive for free software.

Regarding presentation, this antivirus is minimalist since it is displayed as an icon in your menu bar. To launch an analysis of your computer, click on it and select the appropriate tab.

Although it does not have many advanced features, this antivirus still has a parental filter and protection against malicious websites.

Do you want more services? The paid version of Sophos can protect up to 10 computers and offers protection against software ransom.

Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac

Once you have selected the version of Kaspersky that is right for your operating system, it is easy to install.

During our test, this antivirus was a little slow, and several scans were necessary to identify the ten viruses.

However, Kaspersky compensates for these deficiencies with exciting features such as Safe Money, which protects your online payments.

Meltdown and Spectrum: 5 questions on processor vulnerabilities

Two security vulnerabilities on modern Intel processors, AMD and ARM, Meltdown and Spectre, were recently unveiled by research teams.

These vulnerabilities would allow a cyber attacker to access passwords and sensitive data on the concerned computers.

What are Meltdown and Spectrum?

2 critical vulnerabilities have been discovered in modern processor chips by Google Project Zero teams.

Meltdown have affected all Intel processors since 1995 (except Intel Itanium and Intel Atom processors before 2013) while the second, Spectrum, also concerns ARM and AMD processors.
These two vulnerabilities can allow cyber attackers to gain unauthorized access to a computer’s memory, and therefore to sensitive data. The pirates can use these vulnerabilities on personal computers, mobile devices, and the cloud.

How do they work?

Meltdown and Spectrum exploit processor vulnerabilities to bypass memory isolation in the operating system.

Meltdown can remove the barrier between user applications and critical parts of the operating system. This vulnerability makes possible to a program to access the memory, and therefore sensitive data of other programs and the operating system.

Spectrum can deceive vulnerable applications and gain access to the contents of their memory.

What are the risks?

Meltdown and Spectrum are used to recover processed data from the computer. A malicious program can use Meltdown and Spectrum to obtain secrets stored in the memory of other running programs. It can include passwords stored in a manager or browser, personal photos, emails, instant messaging and even critical documents.

Exploiting these vulnerabilities against cloud services seems to be the most worrying scenario.
Can we protect ourselves from it?

Microsoft, Apple, and Linux released patches to correct the Meltdown vulnerability.

However, these patches can have an impact on the performance of the affected computers. And the impact varies depending on the hardware generation and implementation by the chip manufacturer. The developers of the Linux patch have announced an average performance decrease of 30%.

Can we know if we were attacked?

Exploiting a flaw does not leave any traces in traditional log files (those containing system messages such as kernel, services, and applications).

Although detection by antivirus is possible in theory, it is not possible in practice. Unlike conventional malware, Meltdown and Spectrum are difficult to distinguish from benign applications. However, your antivirus software can detect malware that uses attacks by comparing binaries after the antivirus discovers them.

Till this time, no information has been disclosed regarding the exploitation of these vulnerabilities by hackers.

Why You Should Move To The Cloud

Cloud computing has come a long way and there are more and more people adopting this. If you run a business, you need to know all of the reasons why you should look at moving to the cloud. The benefits of cloud computing can help your business in a number of different ways.

The Flexibility

When your computing is all done on hardware that you own, you will have limited flexibility. It will be harder and more expensive to upgrade your computing when you need to expand. Additionally, if you have seasonal peaks in your needs, you do not want to get expensive computing hardware which will be redundant for the rest of the year.

This is where cloud computing will be able to help you. As you do not own any of the hardware, you will not have to worry about the expense of them. The cloud computing provider that you work with will generally have a range of different cloud packages that you can use. This allows you to easily increase and decrease your cloud capacity when you need it and for as long as you need it.

Disaster Recovery

All businesses should have a disaster recovery plan in place because you never know when something bad is going to happen. Cloud computing can help with this plan because all of your data will be saved in the cloud. This will reduce the expenses that you face with your disaster recovery plan because you will not have to store servers at 2 locations.

When disaster hits your company, your employees will also be able to continue working with cloud computing. This is due to the fact that they will be able to work anywhere as long as they have an internet connection. This can reduce the impact that a disaster has on the operation of your business and reduce the loss of income that you could face.

Automatic Software Updates

One of the benefits of cloud computing is the fact that the server is off-site and being monitored by IT professionals hired by the cloud computing provider. This means that you will not have to hire your own IT people to handle the updating of the servers and all of the software. This will generally be included in your cloud package.

Automatic software updates are important because they boost the security of your data. Updates to software will close known holes and ensure that you are safer from hackers. When you have to run the updates yourself, you might be tempted to put this off or your employees could delay the installation.

Environmentally Friendly

If your business is looking to be environmentally friendly, cloud computing is the right solution. When you use the cloud, you can fluctuate your server capacity as you need it. This will actually reduce the amount of energy that your company uses as you will not have to servers that you are not using. The fact that you can work from anywhere will also help you reduce your reliance on paper which is another way to save the environment.

How Cloud Computing Technology Is Changing Management

Cloud computing technology has come a long way over the years and is changing the way that businesses operate. One of the areas impacted by cloud computing technology is management. There are a number of ways that cloud computing is changing management and you need to know what they are so you can better implement changes in your business.

Real-Time Information

One of the ways that management is being changed by cloud computing is through the real-time information that is now available. In the past, managers would have to wait for reports from different teams to understand the progress of a project. This is no longer the case as managers will be able to access all of the data in real time.

This makes management more effective, but could also lead to a problem with micro-management. Data overload is also possible and this can cause a lot of friction between managers and staff. The impact of real-time data will need to be balanced when managing projects to avoid conflict or feelings of being over-supervised.

Managing Compliance

The task of management groups will not only be to ensure that every project and department is on track. Management will also need to ensure that their departments and projects are compliant with internal procedures and government regulations. When working with cloud computing, there will often be more work to be done when it comes to compliance.

Management groups will have to assess if the data being shared on the cloud is compliant with all regulations. This is particularly important if the business works with sensitive data which is being stored in the cloud. The controls which were previously in place to maintain compliance may become impractical with cloud computing.

This means that management will also need to relook the procedures which have been in place and are currently used. These procedures will have to be improved to deal with the new cloud environment. In this way, management is being made more responsible in terms of compliance when cloud computing is being used.

Workflow Approval

Cloud computing is also changing the way that management deals with workflow approval. In many businesses, managers will have to sign off on stages of projects and other daily work. In the past, this would generally be sent to management via email or as a hard copy for approval. This delayed the approval and would often be lost in the other documents management receives.

Cloud computing is changing this as it allows approval requests to be sent via cloud software and tracked by shareholders in the process. Cloud computing also makes it easier for managers to provide the approval which is needed. In most cases, the software which is used required the manager to view the data and then click a button to provide approval.

Cloud computing technology is changing the way we do business and impacting management of companies. There are a number of ways that this is happening with real-time information, compliance management, and workflow approval being a few of them.

What Is Cloud Computing And How Does It Affect What You Do

‘The Cloud’ has become a real buzzword” but what is it, where is it, and how does it impact what you do on your computer? Cloud computing is defined as the practice of making use of a network of remote servers on the internet to process, manage, and store data. In the simplest terms, it means storing and accessing your data and running your programs via the internet rather than using your personal computer’s hard drive or a local server. The term is a metaphor for the internet that comes from the times when presentations and flowcharts represented the gigantic infrastructure of the internet as a fluffy white floating cloud doling out information.

When you use your hard drive to store data and run programs it’s called local computing and storage. For decades, working off a hard drive was the only way the computer industry functioned. Everything needed was physically close and easily accessible for that one computer or others working on a local network. Cloud computing is not about using your hard drive and does not have a dedicated NAS (Network Attached Storage) server or hardware in residence. Cloud computing means you access your data and programs over the internet or have it synced with other information via the Web. Typically an individual user is unaware of the massive data processing that happens on the other side of a connection as cloud computing can be done at any time and anywhere.

Business vs Consumer Cloud Computing

When it comes to big business there is an entirely different version of the cloud. Businesses are able to implement software like SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) where they subscribe to access an application over the internet, for example, Salesforce.com. By using PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) a company can customize its own applications for use by everyone in the business. There is also the mighty IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service where subscribers like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Rackspace provide a platform that can be rented out. An example is Netflix that uses the cloud services of Amazon to provide their customers with services. The cloud computing market was generating over $100 billion per year in 2012 which is estimated to increase to about $500 billion by the year 2020.

The Benefits of Cloud Computing

Adaptability
Cloud computing provides for adaptable applications and programs that are customizable while owners are allowed full control over the core code.

Reliability
Because the cloud is hosted by a third party it provides users with greater assurances of reliability and easy access to customer support when there are problems.

Multitenant
Cloud software provides business users with the opportunity to offer personalized portals and applications to a number of tenants or customers.

Scalable
In today’s ‘Internet of Things,’ it becomes essential that software can integrate with other applications and function across every device. Cloud applications make this possible.

Security
Due to increased resources for centralization and security of data, cloud computing can guarantee a more secure computing environment.

Traditional business applications can be very expensive and complicated to run, often requiring a team of experts to configure, install, run, test, update, and secure a variety of software and hardware applications. When this effort is multiplied across hundreds of apps it becomes easy to see why even the biggest businesses with the best IT teams aren’t getting the apps they need, and small to mid-sized companies don’t stand a chance. For these types of situations, the affordability of cloud-hosted applications becomes an essential tool.

The Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing

There is no denying that businesses, both big and small can enjoy numerous benefits from cloud computing. However, as with anything in this world, this type of technology has its drawbacks as well. As such, it is essential that you take the time to comprehend the pros and cons of cloud computing, which will enable you to get the most out of it.

The Pros of Cloud Computing

Saving Costs

IT cost savings is perhaps the most significant benefit of cloud computing. Businesses, regardless of the size exist to earn money while keeping the operational expenses and capital to a minimum. With this solution, you can save significant capital costs with no application and in-house server storage requirements. The lack of this infrastructure ideally eliminates the associated costs in the form of air conditioning, power as well as administration costs. It is usually a misconception that only big firms can be able to utilize the cloud, when in fact, cloud computing services are quite affordable and accessible for smaller businesses as well.

Strategic Edge

The ever-increasing resources in the computing field will give you a competitive edge over your business rivals as there won’t be a time where you will need IT procurement. Your firm can deploy critical applications that provide substantial business benefits with no upfront costs and reduced provisioning time. Cloud computing ideally lets you forget about technology and allows you to pay attention to critical activities and business goals. Cloud computing can ideally help you reduce the time required to market newer products and services.

Scalability

You can be able to scale up or down your storage and operation needs quickly to fit your situation. This allows for flexibility as your business needs change. Instead of buying and installing costly upgrades yourself, the cloud computing service provider will handle things for you. Utilizing the cloud frees up your time so that you can focus on other critical business activities.

The Cons of Cloud Computing

Security

Even though most of the well-known cloud service providers have industry certifications and implement the best security standards, storing valuable data on external storage service providers opens up many risks. Utilizing cloud computing means that you have to provide the service provider access to your business data. The ease in accessing cloud services ideally gives fraudsters the ability to look for, identify and exploit vulnerabilities and loopholes within the system. For example, in a multi-tenant cloud system where several users utilize the same server, a hacker might attempt to gain access to data of other people hosted and stored in the same place. However, the chances of this happening are next to nil, and the likelihood of compromise is unlikely.

Downtime

As the cloud computing providers handle some clients per day, they can be overwhelmed, not to forget the possibility of technical outages. This could lead to your business being temporarily suspended, which is the last thing you want, primarily if your business heavily depends on online traffic. Ideally, if your internet connection is down, you won’t be able to access your server, data or applications from the cloud.