Securely Connecting Your Business To The Cloud
Before recent global events, the world had already entered the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Of course, we can all agree that the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing restrictions and lockdowns ushered in a faster uptake of all things digital.
Particularly in commerce, where an era of unprecedented business disruption dawned, pushing business owners to adopt new technology and become more agile and resilient. As a result, increasingly more businesses have looked to the cloud to take the burden off of doing business, streamline their operations, and embrace the many benefits that the cloud brings to the table.
There are a great many questions that you might have about moving your business to the cloud, the bulk of which pertain to why this is even necessary in the first place and how you actually go about securely connecting your business to the cloud.
This article has the answers you’re looking for!
We’re going to unpack:
- What Does “Moving To The Cloud” Mean?
- Why You Should Move Your Business To The Cloud
- How To Connect Your Business To The Cloud
What Does “Moving To The Cloud” Mean?
Historically, businesses have relied on traditional IT infrastructure to run their day-to-day operations. What this means on a practical level is that they have had to manage their own physical servers, which are used to store all of their information and archives.
As the size and complexity of a business grows, this places an increasing burden on these servers, which the business must maintain in order to prevent mishaps and breakdowns so that operations can continue in their normal fashion.
In short, the drawbacks of sticking with traditional IT infrastructure are numerous. Never mind the enormous task of storing backups, this setup can be unreliable, inefficient, prevent flexibility, is unable to allow for a reliable disaster recover and backup solution, is expensive to maintain, and hinders internal collaboration and communication between teams and employees working in different locations.
Conversely, moving to the cloud eliminates these disadvantages by allowing you to rely on the cloud’s ability to store and provide access to your business’ data over the Internet instead of a server’s hard drive.
Why You Should Move Your Business To The Cloud
Apart from the many reasons you would want to move away from traditional IT infrastructure, there are several advantages that come from moving to the cloud.
- Cost Efficiency: Cloud computing relies on remote servers, eliminating the need for in-house storage equipment and application requirements, as well as overhead costs, such as software updates, management, and data storage. Additionally, cloud-based services are also much cheaper to use, with many even offering pay-per-use plans.
- Business Continuity: The cloud is designed to store data so that it is mirrored across the servers. If one fails, data is instantly backed up and you have quick access to this data after the failure.
- Scalability: Cloud technology is designed to scale with your changing requirements, automatically deploying cloud servers to help businesses scale up and down and ensure optimum performance under heavy loads.
- Flexibility: Cloud servers offer almost unlimited bandwidth and storage space, thereby allowing your business to instantly scale up and down to support growth and increased activity. Additionally, because employees can access applications and data on a remote server off-site, anywhere and at any time there’s better work place flexibility.
- Improved Collaboration: Giving users inside the business access to the same files, regardless of their location has shown to significantly increase collaboration between groups and communities. Simply, more work gets done in less time.
How To Connect Your Business To The Cloud
When it comes to storing and connecting to your business’ sensitive data in the cloud, it’s important that you carefully review the option that enables this access. Each option will impact your business in different ways, and given that each business differs in how quickly it needs to access data, privacy requirements, cost, as well as user interface customisation, the decision becomes infinitely more personal.
For example, you could consider a cloud VPN (virtual private network).
With a VPN you can securely access a server through the Internet via an encrypted connection. In this way, traffic travelling between the two networks will be encrypted by one VPN gateway and then decrypted by the other VPN gateway – essential for protecting your data as it travels over the Internet. Not only are prying eyes kept away from your data, but you can control user access to the network.
Another option is RDS (remote desktop server). Currently, RDS enables you to gain access to an application or a full desktop without having to install either of these on your device. This means no security or compatibility issues, plus this eliminates the need to manage the end user’s device and applications. Or to put it another way, you don’t have to worry about your data leaving the confines of your secure network.
If RDS or VPN aren’t matching your cloud computing requirements, then a third option is VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). VDI is a software technology that separates the desktop environment from the physical device being used to access it. Simply, users are given dedicated space on a remote server and can create a customised desktop experience that can be accessed anywhere via the internet. This sounds much like RDS, but while RDS provides a generic interface that everyone has access to once they’ve logged on, VDI users have their own operating experience.
It’s important to understand how your business can connect to the cloud – and importantly, which option is best for your business. For example, while some businesses might not require an encrypted connection and only need a generic interface for employees to connect and work from, yours might need more.
Connect with us and let our experts guide you through the options that work best for your business.
