Why Migrate to the Cloud?

It’s no secret that businesses are currently replacing traditional data centers with the cloud. Gartner predicts that by 2025, more than 50% of global enterprises will have moved to a serverless platform.

In this blog, we cover reasons why replacing data centers with the cloud is an excellent strategy. But before that, we should understand the differences between data centers and cloud services.

What is Data Center?

A data center is a physical facility that stores a company’s digital data, applications, and other computing infrastructure. 

• What’s inside
  • Data centers contain servers, data storage drives, network equipment, and other infrastructure. 
• What they do
  • Data centers collect, process, store, and distribute data, and enable access to resources. 
• How they’re designed
  • Data centers are designed with a network of computing and storage resources, including routers, switches, firewalls, and application-delivery controllers. 
• How they’re powered
  • Data centers have backup power systems, such as uninterruptible power supplies, battery banks, and diesel or gas turbine generators. 
• How they’re secured
  • Data centers use redundant copies of electrical systems and components to prevent single points of failure. 
• How they’re used
  • Most major tech companies rely on data centers to deliver online services. 
• How they’ve changed
  • The advent of cloud computing in the early 2000s changed the data center landscape. Today, enterprises use different types of data centers in different places, often with help from third-party service providers.

What Is the Cloud?

Cloud computing refers to computing resources, data, and applications that run on servers in a data center maintained by a cloud vendor and are accessed over the internet.

• Type of Cloud:
  • Public Cloud
    A public cloud is where the cloud provider offers computing capacity and applications over the internet, the computing infrastructure resides in the vendor’s data center, and cloud customers share the vendor’s IT infrastructure. That means multiple organizations might have workloads running on any given public cloud server. Public cloud providers usually offer a tiered pay-per-use model with standards for availability, performance, and speed (called service level agreements or SLAs).
  • Private Cloud
    With a private cloud, a single organization uses a dedicated portion of the cloud vendor’s computing resources. Those resources might be dedicated hardware in the cloud provider’s data center or they may be hosted in the customer organization’s data center and run by the provider.

• • Hybrid Cloud
    Hybrid clouds make use of public and private clouds, and in some cases, they also integrate on-premises data centers. Hybrid clouds can be configured in numerous ways to meet an organization’s unique needs, and the final design is often based on what data needs to be tightly controlled and what data can be stored using shared resources. For example, an organization may choose to run predictable internal operations, such as finance and supply chain, on a private cloud while running customer-facing web applications on a public cloud so they can scale up and down as demand changes. Or an organization might use the public cloud to house nonproprietary, less sensitive data and a private cloud for data such as health records or sensitive customer information with higher regulatory obligations.

•  Cloud Service Models

Cloud computing refers to software, hardware, and data that’s accessible over the internet and that an organization rents using a pay-as-you-go or subscription model. There are three main types of cloud services.

• • Infrastructure as a service (IaaS):IaaS includes the fundamental computing, storage, and networking services of a data center, provisioned and delivered via the internet. Moving to IaaS frees IT staff from having to run and maintain data center equipment, and it enables them to easily scale capacity up and down.

• • Platform as a service (PaaS):PaaS takes the IaaS environment and adds cloud-based capabilities, such as databases, operating systems, integration, and the management needed for application development. With PaaS, users have the cloud technology to build applications without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. IaaS and PaaS are generally sold using a pay-for-use pricing model.

• • Software as a service (SaaS):SaaS involves an application that users access via the internet. SaaS applications are run, patched, and updated by the cloud provider. Users usually engage through a web browser or mobile app, and organizations usually pay by subscription. SaaS application examples include business software such as ERP and CRM systems, social media or streaming services, and videoconferencing.

• Cloud Deployment Models

IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS are all services that run on clouds, but what about the bones underneath? To meet the varied requirements of different organizations, cloud technology offers several deployment models, including the following:

• • Public: A shared cloud with multiple customers using the server’s resources. Public clouds are the most common.
  • Private: A cloud in which one customer has dedicated access to all the server’s resources. Private clouds can exist in the provider’s cloud data center or sometimes on the customer’s premises—in either case, they’re maintained by the vendor.
  • Hybrid: A configuration that uses public and private cloud resources. This model also sometimes includes on-premises data centers. Successful hybrid clouds require clear delineations between public, private, and on-premises workloads, and any appropriate integration and networking capabilities must be secured.
  • Multicloud: A configuration that uses multiple cloud vendors, allowing organizations to choose the cloud best suited to run a given workload. For example, an application and the related analytics might run on one cloud, while the supporting database runs on another. The success of a multicloud environment is dependent on strong connectivity and secure data sharing.

Why Replace Data Centers with a Cloud-Based Solution?

Today, many organizations are replacing their data centers with cloud-based solutions. And the chances are high that you have thought about going serverless, whether you own a company worth multimillion or something smaller. But what is the catch? Here are the top reasons for replacing data centers with the cloud:

• Cost
  • Lowered capital expenditures. With cloud computing, the cloud provider supplies all the hardware (servers, storage devices, firewalls, switches, routers) that you would traditionally have to purchase and manage yourself. Moving to the cloud helps you eliminate these regular capital costs.
  • Lowered operating expenses. Because the cloud requires less infrastructure to maintain, you require a smaller staff and fewer resources to maintain it. Moving to the cloud helps you reduce your operating costs in the long run.
  • Reduced opportunity costs. Large capital expenditures come with an opportunity cost. When you invest $50,000 in a new on-premises server implementation, that’s money you cannot spend on other initiatives. Moving to the cloud replaces large capital expenditures with recurring monthly fees. 

• Availability and Reliability
  • Moving data to the cloud reduces downtime and data loss. Most cloud providers have service level agreements that guarantee 99%+ uptime. Maintaining availability and reliability is much easier when your infrastructure is managed by a cloud provider that provides redundancy and high-speed connections

• Increased scalability
  • Scalability is the ability to increase or decrease the capacity of a process or operation. Cloud services are more scalable than traditional data centers, as they can be easily scaled up or down to meet an organization’s changing needs. 
  • For example, if your organization experiences a sudden increase in traffic, you can quickly scale up your cloud service to accommodate the additional demand. Conversely, if your organization experiences a decrease in traffic, you can scale down accordingly. Typically, cloud-based solutions are five times more scalable than on-premises data centers.
• Enhanced security
  • Security is a top priority for organizations of all sizes, and cloud services guarantee required protection. They come with a higher level of security than traditional data centers, ensuring data is safe and secure.
  • In addition, cloud-based solutions offer several security features not available to traditional data centers. Many cloud-based solutions offer encryption capabilities, which protect your data from unauthorized access. Other security features that you may expect include two-factor authentication and intrusion detection.
• Improved performance
  • Improved performance is one of the critical reasons why you should consider replacing your data centers with a cloud. You can realize this in the following ways.
    • Faster Deployment: Cloud-based solutions can be deployed much faster than traditional data center solutions. You won’t have to wait for the hardware to be delivered and set up to start operations.
    • Lower Latency: Your data is stored in the cloud, meaning you can access a high volume of data with minimal delay. Traditional data centers cannot match this level of speed since it must be accessed physically. 
    • Better Disaster Recovery: Cloud-based solutions provide several disaster recovery features, such as snapshotting and replication. This will ensure that your data is always safe and secure.

• Enhanced business agility
  • Business agility has become a major differentiator in the marketplace. Companies that can quickly adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs are the most successful. Compared to data centers, early-stage migration to the cloud enables enterprises to be more agile in the following ways.
    • Adapting to changing business conditions quickly:The cloud allows businesses to scale up or down to meet changing needs dynamically. This is in contrast to data centers, which often have capacity that goes unused during slow periods.
    • Easily integrating new applications and services:The cloud makes it easy to integrate new applications and services into your existing infrastructure. You don’t have to provision new hardware or install new software.
    • Optimizing IT budgets: Cloud computing ensures you only pay for the specific resources you need, helping you optimize your IT budget and save money.
    • Faster time to market:The cloud enables you to quickly deploy new applications and services. This can help you to get your products and services to market faster than your competitors.