Do I need cloud computing?
The evolution of technology in this age is geared towards rapid development and “self-healing” techniques.
Businesses are implementing newer technologies much faster than ever before. As slower adaptation would mean losing market share to the competition.
To stay ahead of the competition, it is important to use tools and technologies that help deliver the best customer experience. Cloud computing is definitely something to consider in this regard.
What are the benefits of cloud computing?
Excellent speed and efficiency. For example, it takes hardly five seconds to spin up an nginx web server on IBM cloud over a kubernetes cluster. From software selection to making the application available online. Everything is taken care of in those five seconds.
This web server application can then be customized, made a replica of and scaled as needed. With resources available so fast, no business can afford slow methods of application deployments.
Also, if the developer needs to rebuild the application and retest then deploying using a virtual machine rebuild would significantly increase the development time. This method was acceptable until there were faster alternatives available; which is now!
Are many people moving to cloud computing?
Cloud computing is no doubt the future of computing or at at least a large part of it. According to the IDC report, “public cloud spending will grow from $229 billion in 2019 to nearly $500 billion in 2023.”
That is a huge jump!
This increase in numbers would also make moving to the cloud more competitive.
Cloud environments today accommodate all aspects of the data center. This includes different server platforms and software-defined networking. The applications are available online much faster than ever before.
Which cloud vendor should I choose?
Businesses need rapid development without compromising reliability, stability or security. All major cloud vendors address this but the one you choose depends on your individual use case.
Businesses start with cloud vendors but down the line, the requirements might change.
This aspect has to be kept in mind when building applications so when needed, the applications are easily portable. A tool like Red Hat Cloudforms is also an effective way to manage deployments in multi-cloud environments as it works in a vendor-agnostic way.
What applications should I move to the cloud?
It all depends on the structure of your data and applications and what your customers need. For example, if your business sells something online on your website then having a mobile app as well is an inseparable need. Your customers would love the convenience of a mobile app if they love your products. In most cases, they might move to your competition if you lack a mobile app because it is convenient for them.
All businesses try to serve their customers in the fastest way possible. Customers love an experience that is customized, personalized and fast. This is the key to sustained business growth.
The best applications to move to the cloud are those that have rapid development cycles.
If I have an IBMi, what are my options?
IBMi (also referred to as AS400) drives mission-critical applications for many businesses worldwide.
The design of the IBMi is built to handle high capacity workloads and many major ERPs also run on IBMi. You can deploy IBMi partitions on IBM Cloud, Google Cloud Platform or Skytap which have flexible “pay as you go” plans that can scale as needed. You can also choose to migrate your high availability site to the cloud. In most cases, this is a good use case to avoid the costs of running a DR site. Maxava for example has great tools to sync your data to the cloud with consistency.
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