Three Ways Your Business Can Embrace the Cloud’s Benefits
Let’s cut right to the chase; The cloud isn’t the perfect solution for every business. With the development of business technology, tools have been introduced that provide greater and greater benefits to organizations that use them. Perhaps the most useful that we have today, the cloud, has enabled businesses of all sizes to take advantage of far better tools than were available to them before. That being said, various cloud computing solutions have different pros and cons for different businesses. We would never recommend that an architecture firm, which typically has lots of very large files, put any of their applications in the cloud. We would also never recommend a company with a shaky internet connection put all of their marbles into one (cloud) basket. That being said, there are a couple of basic cloud solutions that should work for just about all businesses, when properly implemented and configured. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
Hosted Email
Email remains a critical tool for businesses, that much has not changed. What has been changed is how businesses can support this tool. Instead of the once-requisite investment of time, space, and monetary resources that an on-premise email server brought with it, many are using email solutions supported by the cloud. While we’ll go into the additional benefits of Software-as-a-Service aside from email later in this blog, this approach to email has opened greater opportunities to smaller organizations in a more financially feasible package.
Hosted VoIP
In a similar vein, VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, has offered businesses and even consumers an improved means of placing phone calls. Available to be hosted onsite or in the cloud, many businesses have chosen the cloud-based option.
Why? Well, like hosted email, a cloud-hosted VoIP solution frees the user of any considerable hardware maintenance and simplifies the scalability of the solution to meet a business’ use case. It also adds a mobile aspect to your telephony, through the addition of a smartphone application.
As-a-Service Solutions
We alluded to this above, and so now we return to the assorted business tools that the cloud makes available to businesses, such as Platform-as-a-Service, Network-as-a-Service, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service. Businesses require access to these resources on a regular basis, which makes the cost-effective services of the cloud an appealing option for them.
If any of these applications sound like a good opportunity for your business, or you want to hear more about your options regarding the use of the cloud, give Ashton Technology Solutions a call. Speak to one of our IT professionals today by calling 216 397-4080.
