Getting an enterprise-level IT solution that can compete with the big-budget IT departments of the largest corporations isn’t cheap. The equipment needed to establish an on-premises IT infrastructure hits your balance books as a capital expenditure, and a pretty big one at that.
Between servers, storage drives, firewalls, load balancers, networking gear, cables, cooling equipment, and power, building a robust in-house infrastructure for running your business apps and storing your mission-critical data is downright expensive.
Add to that capital expense the cost of IT personnel to oversee and maintain your on-premises infrastructure, and the bills really do pile up. Even less powerful solutions that fall short of the industry standard can quickly become costly to build and maintain.
So, how can you save on capital expenditures for your business’ infrastructure? One way is to utilize cloud business solutions rather than on-premises solutions for running your business-critical applications.
Reducing Initial Setup Costs
One of the biggest financial advantages of purchasing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) through the cloud is that it massively reduces the initial costs of getting your infrastructure up and running.
Rather than having to pay for an entire infrastructure solution and all the staff and equipment needed to keep it up and running, you instead have a predictable monthly expense with a cloud service provider to use their equipment. This eliminates the often-large initial capital outlay required for traditional in-house IT infrastructure.
Better yet, the infrastructure you get access to is often higher-end equipment that would have been prohibitively expensive if your company were to purchase it for internal use. This can help to level the playing field by giving you access to the same kind of tools that a Big Enterprise company would use.
Lower, More Predictable Month to Month Costs
One of the things that makes managing your month-to-month infrastructure costs difficult with an in-house solution is the need for maintenance and management for all related equipment.
If a cooling machine or some other piece of equipment fails, you have to replace that equipment ASAP. Not only would the cost of the replacement part typically come out of your company’s pocketbook (unless it’s under warranty), the labor required to carry out the repair can bite into the budget as well.
However, this pales in comparison to the need to make sure your infrastructure has the capacity you need to handle your company’s peak load of users and apps.
Trying to guess what your peak load is can be difficult, it’s even harder when you’re trying to project for your need years in advance to anticipate business growth. Overestimating needs has you spending more on infrastructure than you actually need to. Underestimating your needs has your company’s infrastructure not being able to handle the load, making it sluggish and prone to crashing.
Additionally, if you underestimated your needs, you’ll have to shell out more capital for new servers anyways, so undershooting your estimates doesn’t really help control costs.
With a cloud business solution, however, you have the flexibility to add and remove capacity as you need it. If your company initially underestimated its infrastructure needs, you can always add more cloud infrastructure from your CSP. If you overestimated your needs, you can reduce your capacity as needed.
This flexibility allows you to control your IT costs more effectively, keeping total expenditures down.
No Need to Spend Capital On Costly Infrastructure Upgrades
Technology is constantly evolving. Computer systems that were cutting edge just three years ago are considered obsolete now. With computer hardware and software changing all the time, keeping up with the latest and greatest technologies is no easy feat.
Beyond the ever-evolving hardware, there’s also the issue of changes to software to consider. Not only do the major computer OS manufacturers keep rolling out new versions of their interfaces that you have to contend with, hackers are constantly working to develop new malware and information theft techniques to crack your company’s systems.
Keeping your systems safe demands continuous security and OS updates to thwart hackers and fix the vulnerabilities they seek to exploit.
Only the biggest companies have the budget to constantly roll out new infrastructure solutions to keep up with every technological trend. Even then, constantly cycling in new top-tier servers and systems is prohibitively expensive when IT systems aren’t the main focus of the company.
With a cloud business solution, however, you can eliminate the need for making constant capital expenditures on new software and hardware updates.
Because providing IT infrastructure is a core part of a cloud provider’s business, these service providers are able to focus on keeping their hardware and software up to date so you don’t have to. Here, the cloud service provider assumes the upfront costs of acquiring the latest server technologies and software solutions so you can focus on growing your business, not balancing a budget that is weighed down with enormous and unpredictable capital expenses.
These are just a few of the benefits that using a cloud business solution can provide. For more info on cloud computing for business, download our Ebook, 10 Key Advantages of the Cloud.
