“The cloud” has become the new normal when it comes to hosting the many software applications companies use to conduct their critical business functions. In the past, applications had to be installed on an on-premise server or a nearby data center. These days, most businesses are running at least a portion of their business on cloud services. If your company is one of the few yet to give cloud services a try, this brief summary of a few key benefits may be what you needed to give it serious consideration:

1. Increase overall productivity

Architecting an idea into reality has never been easier. Whether you're looking for marketing, mobile, e-commerce, business intelligence, big data, SaaS apps, or IoT, the cloud is the fastest most productive way to bring an idea from inception to reality. Past solutions had a high barrier to entry: new hardware, costly implementation, and perpetual maintenance mean you had to spend thousands before even so much as a proof of concept. With the productivity of the cloud, if you have an idea a new IT platform is literally only seconds away.

2. Seamless expansion

For companies looking to maintain their existing IT infrastructure, extending into the cloud is both seamless and painless. Whether you are looking to add a high-powered data center, offsite disaster recovery, or expandable storage, the cloud can be easily incorporated into the most private of networks, saving you time and money.

3. Cost-saving scalability

Rapid scalability means you can easily scale up or down depending on demand and pay only for what you use. A scalable infrastructure is a lean infrastructure resulting in little to no waste and a healthier bottom line.

4. Increased protection through remote access

A businesses’ worst nightmare is an employee losing or damaging their laptop, posing a security risk to all the sensitive data that was once stored inside. As long as data is stored in the cloud, a company can remote access a lost laptop to secure sensitive data to protect it from falling into the wrong hands (or even wipe it completely). So, no matter what happens to an employee’s computer, you can rest assured that your critical business data is safe and easily retrieved through remote access.

5. Reduce software maintenance headaches and downtime

Maintaining the software components of your system also becomes much simpler with the cloud. With the cloud’s native service-based architecture you can forget about OS updates, trash your old school data backup solutions, set up continuous integration with zero downtime, and more. Once you see much of your system can be monitored and managed from your cloud dashboard you’ll surely be hooked!

These are just a few key advantages to think about when considering a move to the cloud. Our team is standing by to walk you through how a cloud migration would benefit your business. Interested in learning more about how a transition to the cloud can save you money? Check out this blog post about how to cut costs on Microsoft Azure hosting!