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The Benefits of Cloud Services

Introduction

NIST defines cloud computing as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Businesses should define cloud computing as a fantastic opportunity to offer advanced IT services with exceptional savings. Here are just a few of the benefits of cloud services for business of any size, from the sole proprietorship to the international corporation.

Fully Featured Services

Whether the product offered is email, CRM, or VoIP, cloud service providers offer packages from basic service to fully featured offerings that can meet or exceed the capabilities of the leading on-premise solutions at a fraction of their cost. With no need to make capital investments, up skill existing staff or hire new experts, companies can deploy new IT offerings that would otherwise be beyond their capabilities.

Monthly Subscription Costs

Most cloud services require little to no upfront costs and charge a recurring monthly subscription fee based on actual usage. This keeps a company’s expenses manageable, with predictable increases based on the company’s actual growth, as well as the ability to reduce costs if requirements drop. And with monthly subscription models, most companies treat these costs as operational expenses, gaining more immediate financial benefit than they might by capitalizing an on premise implementation over several years.

24/7 Support

One of the biggest challenges for companies that don’t have a global IT team is providing around-the-clock coverage. Cloud services operate on massive economies of scale, and staff for the 24/7/365 support needs to ensure that there’s always someone on duty.

High Availability

Cloud services are built on scalable and resilient infrastructures; high availability is built in. Many companies that try to deploy services in-house find that their investment could double should they try to implement a hot standby service and that the costs of deploying a warm standby could break the bank. High availability is baked right in to cloud services, so your data or applications are available no matter what fate might throw at them.

Financially Backed SLAs

The field of cloud services is highly competitive, and cloud service providers know you are placing mission-critical services with them. The best offer guaranteed SLAs backed by financial guarantees should something go wrong. In house, the best you can do after something fails is try to learn from experience. With cloud service providers, you get money back.

Cloud services are the “next big thing” in IT, enabling companies to offer services to the business that would have been out of reach like fully featured email and collaboration, customer relationship management, website hosting, ecommerce, voice-over-IP telephony, application hosting, and more. If you can identify your needs, you can probably find a cloud service provider who can provide a solution in short order. Look at the cloud as a logical extension of your IT capabilities and take advantage of all the benefits of cloud services.

This article was written by Casper Manes on behalf of IT Channel Insight, a site for MSPs and channel partners where you can find other related articles about cloud services

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