11 Reasons to Move to the Cloud from An On Premises System

Many organizations find that cloud-based solutions meet their needs while providing a number of additional benefits. Cloud solutions make sense for companies of all sizes who are interested in taking advantage of secure, modern solutions. Keep reading to learn about the benefits of working in the cloud and why it should be part of your digital transformation strategy.

1. Easy to Access

The most important benefit of cloud solutions is that it is always available. Your users are able to connect and access key data and files anytime, anywhere, using nothing more than a modern web browser. 

2. Improved Security‍‍

Internal IT teams have many tasks that they are responsible for, one of which being security monitoring. The key differentiator between cloud and on-premise solutions is encryption. The encryption of data means that information is less accessible by hackers or anyone not authorized to view your data. In addition, cloud-based services typically offer a number of security settings that can be set based on the user, allowing for easy control over what information can or cannot be accessed. Modern cloud-based applications are also secured and monitored by a dedicated security team, with a defined set of audited controls and tools that are onerous to implement for all but the largest enterprise businesses.  

3. A Gateway to Innovation

Developers are able to deploy new services and features with the speed and agility that is only possible in the cloud. This fuels innovation and helps you gain or maintain a competitive advantage. 

4. Reduced Maintenance Costs

With cloud computing, your IT team  no longer is responsible for managing software or security updates. On-premise solutions typically require substantial upfront setup, patching, and other time-consuming maintenance from IT. When you adopt cloud solutions this is all managed by the service provider, leaving your teams free to focus on more important business goals.

5. Increased Collaboration 

Cloud solutions empower your teams, who may be in multiple locations and timezones to collaborate easily. When teams are able to work and share documents and records in real time, efficiency increases.

6. Reduced Risk

As more collaboration starts to happen it becomes increasingly critical that you are able to control where and how documents are being shared. With on-premise solutions, your team is sending files back and forth as email attachments to be worked on by one user at a time. This results in a mess of conflicting file content, formats, and titles. With a cloud solution you  reduce the risk that files are shared and stored on individual team members' computers. This helps to ensure that all files are stored centrally and everyone sees the most recent version. 

7. Multi-Tenant Resource Pooling

Cloud solutions are by design, multi-tenant. This allows for multiple users to share resources but without exposing them to security risks. 

8. Ability to Scale Rapidly

Another major benefit of cloud computing is its scalability (or elasticity). This means that cloud services automatically scale up or down as needed, ensuring that resources are available when required. It is no longer necessary to buy additional hardware -- this automatically happens! 

9. Simple to Implement

When you choose a cloud solution, you remove the need to coordinate a large IT project to manage the implementation. When your team is able to implement a key application quicker, the return on investment and impact is also realized more rapidly.

Cloud-based services can be deployed within weeks or months compared to the years it can take to strategically plan, buy, build and implement an on-premise solution. 

10. Increase Reliability

Reliability is a major benefit to cloud solutions. When you introduce cloud solutions you can expect uptimes of 99.99%. Modern cloud-based architectures provide a level of fault tolerance in areas like; the application, supporting databases, and data center in the case of disaster recovery that are not easily matched by older on-premise architectures.  This means that when one server is down another server will take its place; all your data will be kept safe at any time.

11. Reduce Costs

Significant savings can be realized when cloud solutions are adopted. Operating expenses related to supporting on-premise solutions will be removed as well as capital expenditure on internal infrastructure. Your team will no longer need to manage and maintain equipment and infrastructure as this is passed along to the cloud provider. 

Utilizing cloud services reduces ongoing costs, as the responsibility for maintaining and replacing equipment and infrastructure as well as IT environment management is passed to the cloud provider. Companies can also take the initiative to directly negotiate a deal with the cloud provider instead of blindly signing up or accepting terms and conditions.