Benefits
- Scalability
Cloud services are offered based on demand capacity taking advantage of the pay-as-you-go model. This means that when your company grows due to seasonality, operations will not be affected. Unlike the on-site systems, that depend on the infrastructure that has already been installed, you can increase or downsize any time. For instance, when a business experience high levels of traffic in their existing plan, they can change their plan to accommodate the new traffic.
- Reduced cost
Another major benefit of migrating to the cloud is the reduced costs that can be experienced by organizations. By moving to the cloud, companies can significantly save a lot of money, especially in the long-term. Remember that the cloud does not involve purchasing any on-premise hardware or any upfront investment. Instead, you just buy a specific plan, and you are done. With this, you avoid costs such as those associated with the purchase and operating of servers, electricity costs, and management.
- Increased collaboration
In the modern business environment, collaboration is fast becoming an area of competitiveness that every organization seeks efficiency. Due to this, many companies have increasingly started investing in cloud computing to boost their collaboration efforts. Cloud can be accessed over the internet from anywhere, and employees can work together regardless of the location constraints. Documents and files and be accessed simultaneously and can also be updated in real-time.
- Security
Security is one of the biggest misconceptions of the cloud. In reality, however, one of the benefits of moving to the cloud is improved security. Cloud service providers have the best and strictest security infrastructure and expertise needed in the current era. Cloud providers make cybersecurity their main priority, making the cloud more secure than on-site systems.
Risks
- Speed
For any modern organization, speed is a highly critical factor. As such, a business must never lose speed to be efficient. Unfortunately, speed is a limiting factor for some organizations when it comes to cloud computing. If your organization has applications, databases, or software that requires fast speeds that are above average, the cloud might not meet these needs. The good thing, however, is that cloud service providers often allow testing before migrating your operations.
- Lack of expertise and adequate knowledge
Migrating to the cloud requires the right expertise and people with adequate knowledge. Without this, you will not be able to realize the full potential of the cloud, and migration itself might not be a success. Proper migration requires putting the right systems in place and the right knowledge of these systems. Although the team in your organization may have the necessary expertise on physical hardware, the cloud technology might be too complicated.
- Legal issues and restrictions
The next risk to migrating to the cloud is legal restrictions. Before moving to the cloud, one must first understand if any legal restrictions may deny them an opportunity to migrate. For example, government contractors may not be allowed to put their data in the cloud, making it necessary for them to use on-site solutions for their operations. Some of the common regulations include PCI and HIPAA. Although some cloud service providers have been certified to handle PCI and HIPAA, it still presents a significant risk that cannot be denied.