There is a lot of hype around "the cloud" but, for non technical persons "the cloud" is a fuzzy concept or, shall I say, a cloudy concept. It's not clear what is "the cloud", it's not clear which are the pros and cons of cloud.
To help, I'm going to give top 5 reasons for a SME to embrace "the cloud"
Reason #1 - No Capex
Yep. In difficult times where cash is scarce and investment is decreasing, going cloud is a way of getting new services without upfront money
Reason #2 - Pay as you use
Are you still buying that big server just to serve your weekly mailing campaigns? Or do you bought your server expecting a huge growth that never happened? What if you can start small and grow your infrastructure as your needs grow? Going cloud enables it!
Reason #3 - Use your time for business, not on updates
Are system updates taking too much of your time? Getting the latest security patch, testing and deploying is a nightmare?
In a cloud environment, all these issues are handled by the cloud provider so you can focus your time on leveraging the business
Reason #4 - High availability
Managing high availability infrastructures can be expensive and complex. Running clusters and load balanced applications is heavy on your budget and on your team.
By going cloud, the high availability is there by default. No clustering software needed, no changes on the application. It's seamlessly high availability by default.
Reason #5 - Save the planet! (and energy costs)
Cloud solutions are much more energy efficient than traditional servers because there is less waist on CPU and disk. On the other hand, the energy costs are handled by the cloud provider and not by your facilities. So, save the planet and save money.
