One of the biggest selling points of the cloud is its ability to move seamlessly between devices. You open files from the cloud as if they were on your hard drive. Start work on your PC at the office, pick it up on your tablet on the train, and finish it on your laptop at home. The cloud makes it easy to share files and folders across all your devices.
Enhanced Security Features
Security is a top priority for every business, large and small. You need your company's data protected from cyber threats. Cloud computing adds a layer of security because your data lives on hardened, internet-connected servers run by a provider that dedicates itself to cybersecurity best practices, not on a server in your office closet. Only authorized users reach your information, which lowers the probability of a data breach.
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Automatic Backup and Logging
The cloud removes the headaches of running a server in your own data center: hardware maintenance, software updates, and patching. You rent the servers you need and add or remove capacity as your business grows or shrinks. Outgrow a cloud server and moving your data to a larger one is just as easy. The provider handles the upgrades, security, and data backups, so your data is logged and backed up without anyone on your team touching the infrastructure.
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Cost
The first step in a cloud migration is to map the costs. The biggest one to weigh is the cost of downtime. If an hour of downtime costs your business a known dollar figure, every hour the cloud keeps you running pays that figure back. Other costs to factor in include hardware maintenance, software updates, and training employees to use the new environment.
Small businesses without the capital for their own data centers get the benefits larger companies enjoy: more flexibility, more mobility, lower labour costs, and lower hardware costs. The two main models are public and private cloud. A public cloud is shared infrastructure that multiple customers use. Today that means a hyperscale provider like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud rather than your old internet service provider.
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Quick turnaround
In an always-on world, the speed the cloud gives you to release new products and services is invaluable. A cloud environment offers a modern, scalable, flexible infrastructure built for agile development teams. Deploying new applications quickly, without buying expensive hardware first, frees your developers to focus on the work instead of worrying whether the IT resources will be there to finish it.
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Centralization
Centralization gives you a single data hub. Data is always backed up and available from anywhere. Google Docs is a familiar example: open any file, edit it from any computer, and reach all your files no matter where you are. Centralization works because the cloud is a network of servers, hubs, and networks connected to the internet, and your data sits in that shared, always-reachable place rather than on one machine.
