In many of our recent posts, we’ve talked about the benefits of cloud computing. Things like scalability, flexibility, and security are all commonly-cited perks of using a hosted cloud computing solution over an in-house IT infrastructure.
However, there’s another, somewhat less tangible and easily-defined benefit of using cloud infrastructure as a service: ease of operation and management for your business’ IT infrastructure.
Delivering Ease of Use to Organizations Large and Small
A large part of the reason why cloud computing makes management of your IT infrastructure so easy has to do with the flexibility, scalability, and power of hosted cloud services. Combine these features with a host of integrated automation and data orchestration capabilities designed specifically for the convenience of the end user, and you have a powerful platform for driving ease of operation.
For example, some cloud-based services provide transparency and orchestration tools to help you monitor your resources and control your bandwidth usage as a company, freeing up resources that can be used for driving your business forward.
Even a cloud platform without some kind of unified customer portal to provide a “single pane of glass” view of your IT assets still delivers considerable control over your resources and allows you to scale your IT expenditures fairly freely. This, in turn, helps make the cloud a powerful tool for enabling IT success.
For example, consider how much infrastructure your company needs on a day-to-day basis. In some companies, this need is relatively stable and predictable. However, your company may need to add or remove infrastructure to meet specific demands, such as:
- Seasonal customer traffic loads
- Sudden “crunch time” IT demands
- Growth of business staff using your company’s apps
If you’re relying on in-house IT infrastructure, you won’t have the flexibility needed to make quick changes to your infrastructure. This can mean missing out on valuable business opportunities, or being stuck with paying for more infrastructure than you need.
The flexibility of the cloud makes managing your IT infrastructure needs easy, as you can add or remove capacity as you need it rather than having to plan out your IT infrastructure for years in advance.
Why Ease of Use and Management is Important
Although using cloud computing for IaaS is easier to manage than using in-house IT infrastructure, why is this ease of operation and management important?
Here are a few reasons to consider:
- Easier Budgeting for IT Infrastructure. Because you don’t have to plan out your IT needs years in advance to justify expensive server purchases, it’s easier to establish and control your IT infrastructure budget with cloud computing.
- Better Control Over Data/Bandwidth Usage. Many cloud solutions come equipped with tools for enhancing your visibility of data. This, in turn, helps you better control how many extraneous copies you have of your data, reducing data bloat and bandwidth use.
- Less Time Spent Managing Infrastructure. Because many cloud processes are automated, or managed by your cloud provider, you don’t have to spend as many man-hours on managing your cloud solution. This frees up time for you to focus on delivering tangible results for your business.
In short, the ease of management that cloud computing provides helps you achieve stronger business results by freeing up the time, effort, and resources that would have been spent on harder-to-manage in-house IT infrastructure solutions.
This is just one of many ways the cloud can help provide peace of mind. Download our Ebook,10 Key Advantages of the Cloud for more ways the cloud can impact your business.
