If your business is still using private data centres to host its data, you may want to consider switching to a hybrid cloud solution soon. Unlike traditional cloud services, a hybrid cloud solution combines a private cloud with one or more public cloud services, allowing businesses to move workloads whenever it’s needed. A report from Industry Research even found that the global hybrid cloud market is expected to reach $105.2 trillion by 2024, with an impressive year-over-year growth rate of 18.73%. As such, if you want your business to remain competitive, you need to adopt this infrastructure as soon as you can.
In fact, 2021’s circumstances emphasise the need for hybrid cloud migration. And here are a few reasons why:
Scalability
If you weren’t using cloud platforms before the pandemic, you probably had a hard time transitioning to remote work. If your files and software were already hosted on the cloud, employees could have accessed them anytime and from any place, making operations much smoother. In fact, this could even help your business scale in the long run. In our previous post on why you should move to the cloud, we highlighted how scaling software and services on-site could be difficult. But with the cloud, you’ll only need to pay to upgrades plans.
Plus, software hosted on the cloud is easier to update. For example, since Microsoft hosts the Azure suite servers, once their IT team releases a patch for that, everything — including your assets — is easily updated.
Lower operating costs
It’s no secret that on-site data centres are expensive. Indeed, between the frequent maintenance and infrastructure changes, an enterprise-level data centre can cost up to $25 million per year depending on the size of the business. Plus, they consume a lot of power. There are three demands to any hardware’s PCB stackup design: controlled impedance, crosstalk control, and interplane capacitance. All of them need certain power levels to maintain, making servers very costly in terms of energy. In fact, one server can use between 500 and 1,200 WPH of electricity.
Adopting a hybrid cloud infrastructure won’t require you to maintain as many servers since most of the data you’ll use is on the public cloud. Let’s use Microsoft as an example again. Their Office 365 hybrid cloud infrastructure will store your data on-premise for security and backup purposes, but all software in the suite (like Office and Azure) are stored on the public cloud.
This year, you could use this extra money to create better online campaigns or even expand your services.
Better security
Did you know that cloud platforms are some of the safest places you can store your data in? This is especially important this year, as cyberattacks are once again on the rise. True enough, cybercrime will cost the global economy more than $6.1 trillion by the end of 2021, “with the pandemic serving as a catalyst”. A big reason for the attacks is the backdoors to companies’ data infrastructure that are being exposed with employees using unprotected personal devices and networks at home.
However, files on the cloud are encrypted, making it harder for hackers to access them. Some services, like Microsoft 365, even have filtering services that prevent harmful links from entering the system, keeping your employees away from phishing emails and other scams.
Overall, the hybrid cloud has a ton of benefits, from reduced costs to faster scalability. If you haven’t made the switch from on-premise to hybrid cloud yet, 2021 might be the time to migrate.
TBSC can help you get started; we’ll even let you keep the software you’re already using and manage your licences. Contact info@businesssoftwarecentre.com for more information.
Specially written for businesssoftwarecentre.com
By: Raine June
