Why is Migrating to The Cloud Confusing?

The cloud is one of many technological advances that have been pitched to businesses in recent years. For many business operators without technological knowledge, migrating to the cloud can be confusing.

Deciding how to migrate to the cloud can be equally confusing for decision-makers that do not understand the technical parameters. The biggest question is whether cloud migration is worth the effort or whether it’s the best solution for your business.

What is the Cloud?

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Cloud technology is surprisingly basic and should be understandable with little research for most people. Simply, it is data storage at data centres that are remote to your business, rather than on local hard drives or servers.

This means that your data is transmitted to an enormous data storage unit somewhere else in the world. You can then receive this data whenever you need it from your cloud storage provider, who will instantly send it back to you.

What Types of Cloud are there?

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A key point of confusion for many with the cloud is that it is not a single entity run by a single company. There are three types of cloud computing; public, private, and hybrid. Each type of cloud computing offers different benefits. The most common cloud service is a public cloud. Cloud services that provide public servers mean you share your servers with other businesses. This means they receive more traffic so are more likely to fail.

However, public cloud providers get around this by diverting your data to various sites. That means if one server goes down, you can still access it from another server. In most cases, public clouds have high availability with guaranteed uptimes of 99.999% of the time. A private cloud solution means that your business has sole access to its own cloud.

This makes your serves more secure and stable, but also much more expensive to run. Finally, the hybrid cloud comes between the two. You will store most of your data on a public cloud, but you will reserve your most valuable data to be stored locally and securely. A hybrid solution gives you the best of both worlds and is the most popular solution for the majority of businesses. However, it is also the most complicated option for IT teams to manage.

Is Cloud Migration a Financial Benefit or Burden?

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The main financial saving allowed for the cloud is reduced hardware costs. Your business likely deals with vast amounts of data, and without the cloud, you would need to purchase expensive storage equipment. Meanwhile, the cloud comes with much lower costs. For example, storing data with Amazon Web Services will cost you 1.7 pence per GB per month.

The other financial benefit is in improving the productivity of your workers. Cloud productivity suites such as Microsoft 365 facilitate an unprecedented amount of digital collaboration. Your workers will be able to work on the same document simultaneously so that they can release their full creative potential upon a piece of work.

Should I Migrate my Business to the Cloud?

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Overcoming these obstacles comes with clear benefits to your business, like enhancing your cyber security and improving your workforce’s productivity. These reasons led to 50% of companies that had no cloud computing in place moving data to the cloud in 2024.