It’s often said that any discussion of commercial software must include the cloud computing discussion. Let’s take a look at why this makes sense and review the advantages of cloud computing, particularly for CCM producers.
Cost savings is one of, if not, the biggest Cloud computing benefit – saving substantial capital cost as it does not need any physical hardware investments. Also, you do not need trained personnel to maintain the hardware. The purchase, administration and management of equipment is done by the cloud service provider.
Cloud computing offers a strategic edge. It is an important advantage of Cloud services- allowing access to the latest applications at any time without spending time and money on installations. Cloud computing also allows deployment of solutions quickly with less administration and overhead. This faster and efficient deployment allows acquisition of resources for your system within minutes.
A major part of the strategic edge and cost savings discussion is the elastic nature of cloud computing. With the ability to shrink and grow the computing platform, peak loads can be handled on an as needed basis. There is no longer a need to purchase equipment predicated on a peak load of 4 days at the beginning of the month while this excess equipment sits idle for the balance of the month.
All major cloud computing platforms provide the ability to instantiate new virtual machines based on a load threshold. Equipment can be ‘brought online’ in a matter of seconds to handle peak requirements and then ‘taken down’ just as quickly when that requirement no longer exists. This results in considerable savings since payment for equipment utilization is based on ‘uptime’.
Crawford Technologies cloud licensing and Software as a Service (SaaS) agreements maintain consistency with this pricing structure, providing volume and usage-based plans that charge only for what is needed – eliminating the need to procure software for use only during peak load periods.
Other advantages and benefits include the following.
Reliability and high-availability
With automatic instantiation of machines based on various conditions, ‘system downtime’ can bring up a new machine when a fault is detected. Although this is certainly possible in a on-premise situation, cloud computing offers the advantage of providing the fail-over machine at no cost until it’s actually used.
Mobility
Organizations need to support not only Work from Home (WFH) environments, but Work from Anywhere (WFA) as well. Employees, partners and customers can all access required systems (if appropriate) from anywhere through an Internet connection. The need to ‘come into the office’ or data center is no longer required.
Unlimited storage capacity
The cloud offers almost limitless storage capacity. At any time, storage can be quickly expanded with very nominal monthly fees. Capacity planning no longer requires spending in advance of need.
Quick Deployment
Last but not least, cloud computing gives you the advantage of rapid deployment. So, when you decide to use the cloud, your entire system can be fully functional in just a few minutes. Although, the amount of time taken depends on what kind of technologies are used in your business.
The cloud provides many significant advantages for savings, reliability and efficiency increases. The true potential, however, can be reached only with the right combination of the computing platform and the software designed to run on it.
