4 reasons that will inspire you to move to cloud

Over the past few years, businesses, belonging to different industries, have gradually shown interest in cloud services and there are significant reasons behind a trend like this. According to industry experts, the rate of cloud adoption has grown faster than what was anticipated previously. Apart from ensuring increased efficiency and improved cash flow, cloud offers a lot of other benefits. No matter whether you have just started a business venture, or you have been associated with a large scale business organization since long, it’s never too late to opt for a cloud service. Whether you are looking for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or you are planning to invest in a solution like Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), the outcome of investing in cloud computing is pretty obvious. Not quite aware of the exact benefits that you might get to experience after opting for a cloud computing solution? Here is a list, highlighting the most significant ones; take a quick look –

·         Application of fresh software – When you invest in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), you can use the latest versions of all the applications that are needed to run the business operations smoothly. As all the applications are upgraded immediately, this ensures you can enable your employees with all the new functionalities and features. As a result of this, the overall productivity gets increased significantly. More interestingly, the software upgrades are released at frequent intervals and this helps improve your business functions to a great extent.

·     Flexibility of cost – When compared to a traditional method or an on premise solution, the cost of a cloud computing solution is quite flexible. As an organization, you need to pay only for the infrastructure and server capacity as per the usage. For instance, when you are expecting high traffic, you can provision more capacity, and then again, de-provision the same when it’s no longer required. With a traditional computing solution, you will have to buy the additional capacity to accommodate the high traffic.

·           Effective disaster recovery – Investing in a robust disaster recovery solution is a must for every business organization, but for small and medium businesses, it’s often not possible to make this additional expense. However, with cloud computing, it has now become possible for SMBs to implement recovery and backup solutions. These solutions not only help avoid the up-front investment, but also help save a great deal of time, which can be further used for the productive activities.

·           Improved collaboration – One of the most amazing benefits of investing in cloud computing is that it helps ensure better collaboration. Since all your team members can access, share and edit documents from any location, at any point of time, it helps them perform better. With a cloud solution on board, you can rest assured of improvement both in terms of quantity and quality. As they can access cloud based workflow as well as some file sharing apps, it will help them follow the updates in real time.

Considering these four major benefits of opting for a cloud computing solution will surely motivate you to invest into one. However, make sure to plan the implementation of a solution like this well in advance. 

How to choose the most reliable cloud application hosting provider

There is no doubt regarding the fact that moving some of the business operations like document storage and email to the cloud definitely helps organizations streamline the workflow and cut the costs to a great extent. This is also a great strategy to eradicate the requirement of hardware and in-house IT professionals. In fact, cloud also makes it simpler and easier for the remote employees to communicate with the core managers and access all the vital information and collaborate amongst themselves. Probably it’s the small and medium scale organizations that benefit the most from cloud application hosting. This is beneficial since the small and medium scale businesses get a scope to focus on their core businesses.

In the present time, designing and building mobile applications has turned out to be an obvious trend for almost all the businesses. This is why investing in cloud application hosting has become a basic need for all the businesses. If you are looking for cloud application hosting providers, be ready to check out several options. There are many service providers who offer end to end cloud application hosting services. However, if you are not sure how to select the most reliable service provider, here are some tips that you should definitely follow –

·         Check the pricing structure of the service provider – As a user, you should be very clear about the pricing structure that the service provider follows. Be sure to check if the organization with which you are going to sign the deal offers a pay-as-you-go model. You should also check if there are any initial upfront costs, which are not usually charged by the large scale organizations. From the outset, the pricing structure should be pay-as-you-use and it should also be able to add the services as and when required.

·         Find out the location of the data centre – This is probably one of the most important factors that you should consider right at the beginning. You should start thinking about it well in advance as this affects the security of your mission critical data to a great extent. Before signing the deal with the service provider, you should definitely check whether or not it is located in a safe zone.

·         Verify the security of the cloud environment – Security, is indeed a major consideration for selecting a third party cloud service provider. Check if the service provider follows the standard security measures and update those consistently. This ensures that your mission critical information remains safe and secure. Make sure you are completely comfortable with the cloud providers’ approach to security.

These are some of the most important tips by following which you will be able to choose the most reliable cloud application hosting provider.

How Beneficial is The Cloud for your Organisation?

Two decades back, before major search engines were launched, would you have believed if someone told you that you’d have information at your fingertips, in the cosy comfort of your home?

Fast forward to the year when social media websites/apps were released, and user-generated stories took on the world by the storm. You could connect and communicate with people, and information was stored on the server for everyone in your network to see. Today, the world has moved on from the local server and local infrastructure to a more virtual server and virtual infrastructure. Cloud has truly transformed how people share information, retrieve data, work in remote, and send messages to each other. With the cloud, the digital transformation was finally initiated.

For the uninitiated, we will take you through the basics of cloud computing, and the different cloud hosting services available to make your life comfortable and easy.

Cloud hosting services

Cloud hosting can be simply called an on-demand technology that works on the principle of shared storage and processing. The physical grid principles have been taken to the virtual world to ensure multiple computing resources share the hardware, and function with speed.

When you are hosting on the cloud, you are not hosting the data onto a single server but on multiple servers, thus safeguarding your data from system failures and other issues. Automating data access is another virtue of cloud hosting.

There are a multitude of cloud hosting services and cloud hosting providers that you need to take a look at, understand, articulate and assess for your needs. Majorly divided into three, public, private and hybrid, we will take you through each of them individually.

Public cloud: Available on the Internet, this cloud infrastructure is open to the public. It is easy to setup, highly economical, and comes with affordable bandwidth costs. You can opt for the pay-per-use model, which will allow you to pay for the services you use. The only fallback of this model is the fact that it follows the principle ‘one size fits all’, which may not be the case for your organisation.

Private cloud: Unlike the public cloud, the private cloud is owned by a specific company, and it offers the cloud computing benefits along with complete control over your data. Large enterprises opt for private cloud as they view it as enhanced security for their data and enterprise. The assets are singularly stored within the firewall strictly compiled by the enterprise.

Hybrid cloud: As the name suggests, it is a hybrid between the private and public cloud. It offers data control akin to private cloud, while keeping with the software-as-a-service principle of the public cloud. It takes the best of both the worlds, to offer extensive control and better data management to enterprises.

Benefits of cloud to organisations

With every technology that has come into existence, extensive opportunities have been created for businesses, and business models have evolved for better revenues and profitability.

·         Reduced investments: When you are opting for the cloud, you are opting to pay for whatever service you would be using. Most often, enterprises need to invest in infrastructure that would be deployed on their premises. With the cloud, the cost and efforts involved in setting up the IT infrastructure are reduced, thus reducing the overhead costs in a major way. This, in turn, helps you fund your team and projects, thus increasing chances of profitability.

·         Easy scalability: Upgrading a physical system requires a lot of effort from the team. You will have to develop and deploy the applications on the premise, and even deploy the hardware accordingly. That’s not the case with the cloud. The server and infrastructure are virtual which means scalability is definitely not your headache anymore. The development is easier on the cloud, making creating applications faster, and the performance testing easier for you.

·         Easy maintenance: You are on the cloud, which means you don’t really need to invest time or effort in maintaining the infrastructure. Moreover, the systems and applications on the cloud undergo automated updates, which reduce your need to interfere and test or update the application or system on a regular basis. Downtime of the system can harm the company’s reputation, and even cause abandonments. With the right cloud hosting providers, you don’t need to worry about that, as now you won’t be facing any downtime.

·         Transformed disaster recovery: Backup is a major trouble with people, and most people don’t attempt to take regular backup of their data, which could cause sudden loss of data. The process of backing up data manually is time-consuming and pretty expensive. To avoid the costs and time involved with backing up data, and to prevent the losses that are likely to occur with data loss due to unforeseen disasters, the cloud is the best path for enterprises. This will schedule auto-backup, and store your data to the server. The centralised database will possess all your data and is regularly synced, based on the intervals you have suggested. This makes life hassle-free for companies.

With the technology provided by cloud service providers, companies need not worry about their data and infrastructure and can concentrate on their core, bringing in more productivity and profitability to the organisation.

Linux managed server or Windows managed server: Which is more apt for you?

If you are running a business, you would surely like to maximize the scope of profit. In order to achieve this, you need to maximize the scalability, value and performance of the infrastructure that you are using. At the same time, you should also be careful enough to improve the user experience. If you are puzzled to run a lot of critical applications, you should opt for managed hosting server. It’s a solution that has been designed in a way so that it works for specific business needs and the particular infrastructure of a business.

Wondering why you should opt for managed hosting server? Well, there are multiple reasons. With these services, you don’t need to worry about managing the platform, and you can also access the latest technological advancements without paying the upgrade costs. While the benefits of managed server are quite obvious, you need to choose between a Linux based solution and a Windows managed server. While choosing between these two, you need to consider which would be more relevant for your business and the jobs that you are going to perform.

Here are some of the factors that you need to consider while choosing between these two –

·        Security – One of the most important aspects that you need to take care of while choosing a server is security. Both Windows as well as Linux managed servers need very strong security protection. Hence, make sure you investigate what security measures are provided by the service provider. Before you sign up for the service of any service provider, be sure to check the security measures thoroughly.  

·     Cost-effectiveness – Finally, this is another most important feature that you need to keep in mind. Quite obviously, cost effectiveness has always played a major role whenever it comes to opt for a service or buy a product. Remember that for using Microsoft products, you need to pay a certain amount while you can use Linux for free.

·      Scalability – If you need to choose between these two software, you should check the scalability of both the models. For instance, keep this in mind that software that are Linux based are not necessarily compatible with the different Microsoft technologies like .NET. On the other hand, software that are Windows based are usually compatible with Linux features like MySQL and PHP.

·        The language of development – While choosing any of these two servers, you should keep in mind the development language. Most of the Linux hosting environments generally use a MySQL database. If you are planning to use applications that are based on ASP .NET or SQL server, you should opt for a Windows managed server. Make sure whichever you opt for, you check the minimum hosting requirements that are required for running the application. Consider asking your team of developers to specify the minimum requirement.

Once you consider all these, you should be able to determine the more suitable solution for your business. Apart from these factors, you should also check out the performance issues and stability of both the solutions. 

Follow these 3 tips while choosing a cloud service provider for your business

Over the past few years, the entire IT industry has witnessed a huge revolution, in terms of storage and cloud computing. With the increased amount of data, it has become almost impossible for businesses to store the required data on their own and this is why they prefer to opt for cloud based solutions. While the benefits of cloud computing are quite obvious, you might not be able reap the maximum possible benefits if you can’t choose the right cloud service provider. It’s undoubtedly true that opting for a cloud storage solution helps improve the productivity of the developers and also boosts up the time-to-market. But then, finding the right service provider is important in order to ensure the best possible benefits.

While looking for a cloud service provider, you should keep your exact requirements in mind. Not all businesses have the same requirement and this is why you should opt for a solution that fits your requirements best. Here are some helpful tips that you should follow in order to find the right cloud service provider –

• Mitigate the risks – First off, you have to accept the fact that your data is not completely safe anywhere. This is why it’s essential to define the level of risk that you can afford and ask the potential providers whether or not they will be able to satisfy it. Most of the standards and qualifications are quite transparent and these can be easily audited. Make sure the service provider offers PCI and HIPPA compliance. You should definitely check your individual requirements as well. Be sure to sign the deal with a service provider who will be able to minimize the risks to a great extent.

• Find out the right locations – Try to figure out where exactly you would require the Infrastructure as a Service. If your business application crunches the data of customers who are largely based in a particular location, you might consider hosting the data differently. In some situations, there are certain legal implications that you have to take care of. Hence, while selecting the cloud service provider, make sure you are clearly aware of the location well in advance. This will help you avoid the legal hassles in future.

• Be sure about the SLA – Service Level Agreement or SLA is one of the most important factors that you should check for on the very first go. You should note that cloud SLAs vary to a great extent. This is why you should take the SLA as the very starting point and get it clarified by your legal team, section by section. Consider using the customer references and their individual experience with SLAs. Be sure to have a list of questions related to the SLA and treat it as a negotiation.

These are some of the most important tips that you should keep in mind while choosing a cloud service provider. Apart from these, you should also calculate and compare the price that the service providers ask for.

Top 3 Facts of Cloud Security That You Need To Remember

Security is one of the most integral aspects of cloud computing and if you are planning to invest in it, you should have a clear knowledge of all the probable security issues of cloud computing. In fact, in the present scenario when most of the business owners are not sure about whether or not to invest in cloud, security is one of the biggest concerns that they worry about. Till date, there are many business owners who think that on premise is a safer and better option as compared to a cloud based solution. In fact, there are also many entrepreneurs who think that cloud is probably the least safe place on the earth to store one’s important documents.

However, talking about cloud security, it depends on the perception of the individual organization and the leadership skills of the leading professionals of the organisation. It’s the responsibility of the management professionals to determine whether or not a cloud deployment is the right strategy for the organization. In general, cloud adoption is growing at a rapid rate and hence, it’s important to know the different aspects of cloud computing security.

·         Cloud security is one of the top concerns of 2015 – According to the studies, conducted during 2015, cloud security has been one of the major concerns of the IT executives, over the past few years. Apart from these, a number of researches were conducted which show that thirty six percent of the IT executives mentioned security as their first priority, while thirty one percent of them mentioned cloud to be one of the first initiatives that they would like to take.

·         Public vs. private is not the end of the story – One of the major concerns regarding cloud security is the level of security offered by the public cloud and private cloud. While it’s true that a public cloud environment offers more control over the data and better compliance to PCI and HIPPA standards, there are also certain advantages of opting for a public cloud environment. Basically the security issues get determined by the overall cloud strategy that an organization adopts and also by how the managers are using the technology.

  

·         The growth of cloud security market – According to the market report that has been created based on multiple researches, the market for the different security services and products is growing at an exponential rate across the globe. At the same time, it has also been found that the demand for cloud-based security solutions is leading the industry. According to the prediction of the industry experts, the market size for cloud based security solutions will reach around $9 billion by the end of 2019.

These are the major security concerns of cloud computing that every business owner should be aware of. Apart from these, it should also be kept in mind that over the past few years 43% of the companies experienced data breaches, and they had to suffer the obvious consequences of this data loss as well. This is why it’s important to be aware of the ongoing market trends and take a wise decision.

Reference URL - http://www.techrepublic.com/article/cloud-security-10-things-you-need-to-know/

What is The Smart Way to Find the Best Yet Affordable Dedicated Server in India?

There are certain signs that indicate the success of an online business. These include huge volume of traffic, high transaction volumes and increased number of customers. These clearly indicate that the business needs to scale up to a great extent. If your business has been undergoing such a phase, and you are still struggling with a shared server hosting, it might hamper the growth of your business to a significant extent. In a situation like this, opting for a dedicated server is the best possible solution for each and every business. This is a new age hosting solution which is considered to be perfect for e-commerce websites and large scale businesses that experience heavy traffic. The dedicated web servers are powerful solutions for all the requirements of your online business. It offers a robust and unparalleled hosting environment for all the critical websites and complex e-commerce applications.

With the help of lots of hosting service providers, it’s no longer difficult to find an economical as well as a good quality dedicated server in India. If your business is based in India, and you are looking for affordable dedicated server hosting service, it won’t be difficult for you to find one. For different types of hosting services and data centre, India is probably the best place to explore as you can find lots of cost-effective solutions. But then, are you sure that you will be able to choose the most suitable dedicated server solution for your business? Well, here are some of the most useful tips that you should follow while looking for dedicated server hosting service –

• Choose the operating system carefully – While choosing a dedicated server, you have the option between Linux and Windows when it comes to choose the OS. While Linux is ideal for PHP and Java, Windows is considered best for .NET. Hence, you should be careful enough about your exact requirement while choosing a server. If in a doubt, you can always ask for professional help and get experts’ advice for the hosting solution. If you are planning to run a website that is extremely rich with resources, be sure to choose the most powerful and fastest processor that you can afford.

• Look for 24X7 customer support – When it comes to a dedicated server solution, it’s extremely important to look for a solution that comes with thorough technical support. Make sure you will always be able to reach a point of contact who will help you solve any problem that you are facing with the server. Remember that the response time needs to be very quick. Hence, try emailing or calling the service provider before signing the deal. This will help you get an idea regarding how fast they will be able to get back to you.

Be sure to consider other important factors like the annual maintenance costs and service durability of the server before investing. Make sure whichever solution you choose, you would be able to continue with that comfortably enough in the long run.