The cloud computing is wiping off the roles of traditional Internet technology departments in organizations. So, the dream of Steve Jobs (late chairman of Apple) is coming true. He said – “I don’t need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to the server faster… carrying around these non-connected computers is byzantine by comparison.” – Steve Jobs, late chairman of Apple (1997)
Why should your business consider moving to the cloud?
Cloud computing is comprised of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). These three services help access data, applications, and services over the Internet. The cloud eliminates the barrier of working within office and gives you the ability to work from anywhere.
SaaS
Represents to a method of delivering applications over the Internet. You can access applications directly from your Web browsers. This means that you do not have to invest in buying, installing, maintaining, and updating the hardware or software. The SaaS provider, like SAP takes care of everything and you should always get the latest version of the application.
PaaS
Refers to the cloud platform and tool to help you build and deploy applications on the cloud. You can easily access applications through Web browser, which means that you do not own the responsibility of purchasing and maintaining hardware and software. For example, SAP HANA that consists of the comprehensive qualities to create better and more agile applications in less time.
IaaS
So much of data is poured on daily basis, which has made it difficult for organizations to handle (processing and storage) them in a traditional way, i.e., having hardware and servers within the premises. Cloud computing avails high-performance virtual machines that allow processing of data and storing tons of data.
Not only this, there are products that takes charge of frequent backups (be it daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly). You can easily recover from a data loss disaster, without investing in your own backup infrastructure and skills.
Conclusion
Organizations that are not on the cloud have to maintain infrastructure, support staff and related expenses on their own. This works very well if organizations have the scale that can absorb these costs. But your business does not have such a scale, it will save a lot of costs by moving to the cloud at the earliest. You can rely on proven enterprise cloud security and hosting services (such as cloud computing at SAP) and select from a private, public, or hybrid cloud environment.