The cloud has come a long way in a relatively short period of time, helping many businesses to transform their IT networks and infrastructure. While there’s no doubt that the cloud has come of age over the past two or three years, it hasn’t stopped evolving and could be about to enter a second wave of change that will have another transformative effect on the way businesses use it.
According to recent research, 38% of business decision-makers said they are currently building private clouds, with 32% utilising public cloud services and the rest planning to use some form of cloud technology during 2017.
Meanwhile, 59% of respondents to the survey, by market research company Forrester, said they are adopting a hybrid cloud model, which utilises the best of both cloud and traditional technologies.
While SMEs can shift their services to the cloud, it may not be a financially-viable solution for larger businesses, which usually make significant investments in on-premise IT infrastructure.
Because of this, such companies will move only part of their operations to the cloud.
However, this should not just be the preserve of big business.
SMEs could also benefit from a hybrid approach which enables them to take advantage of the scalability offered by cloud computing, without exposing critical data to third-party vulnerabilities.
Cloud security, of course, remains a serious issue and can often be the barrier that prevents a business from making the switch to the cloud.
While an increasing number of SMEs are moving their services to the cloud, a few still have reservations, with security remaining the biggest concern.
With an increasing number of organisations in the manufacturing and healthcare sectors, in particular, migrating to the cloud, data security will need to stay one step ahead if we are to avoid a repeat of the WannaCry attacks which crippled users across Europe, including the NHS in many parts of the UK, earlier this year.
Cloud computing skills are also starting to become an acute problem for SMEs, with continuous training and retraining becoming a big challenge for businesses which have already migrated on to the cloud and need to stay ahead of the curve as application providers keep creating new products and releases.
The multi-vendor approach is also coming more to the fore.
As SMEs now have a huge amount of cloud services at their disposal, they can pick and choose the services and technologies they want, to best fit the needs of their business.
Because different cloud services provide for different needs, it is more important than ever for SMEs to go for more than a single solution.
This approach, however, isn’t without challenges of its own, as keeping a track of and managing multiple providers can become a complex task.
That’s why many firms outsource their cloud requirements to a managed services provider such as Spectrum, that can develop a bespoke package based on business need and manage multiple vendors on behalf of the client, serving as a single point of contact and billing.
Conclusion
The cloud has become an indispensable tool for businesses looking to gain an edge over their competitors and as the year progresses, more SMEs will migrate to cloud.
The cloud is also a great leveller, enabling SMEs to compete on a same level as larger enterprises, so regardless of how big your business is, it’s likely that you will benefit from the adoption of cloud in some form or other.
Spectrum’s range of cloud solutions can give you access to the latest technologies at a fraction of the price of physical IT infrastructure.
We can enable you to consolidate multiple suppliers into a single, easy-to-use interface, so you can keep full control of your IT.
You can improve application and network performance and guarantee security.
And you can boost productivity by ensuring your employees remain connected to your business from wherever they are.
