Cloud solutions – are they the technological future for business?

Technologia staje się od kilku ostatnich lat podstawowym wyznacznikiem postrzegania firmy jako nowoczesnej i wpływa w znacznym stopniu na przewagę konkurencyjną w każdej branży. To na działach IT spoczywa coraz większa odpowiedzialność za innowacyjność oraz budowę wartości biznesowej organizacji. Ponad 90% firm, które postrzegane są jako liderzy rynku wykorzystują w swojej działalności rozwiązania chmurowe, które stają się właśnie tym czynnikiem technologicznym, który pozwala odróżnić się od konkurencji – zaledwie co druga firma aspirująca do bycia liderem wdrożyła chmurę w swojej organizacji.

What is cloud?

Cloud computing is a vast network of remote servers located in different places around the world or in one country, which are combined into one coherent ecosystem. Various data can be stored in the cloud, available at any time, without the organization having to take care of the licenses, server administration or hardware resources, which is of great importance in the time of difficulties related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Types of clouds

There are four types of clouds tailored to what and how we want to share, thanks to which we are able to implement the tailored service for our organization.

Public cloud

In this case the service provider offers access to shared resources to everyone – the services are aimed at the general public or specific industries, which positively affects the cost of the entire solution, and data is available via the public Internet.

Private cloud

It is also known as internal or corporate – the service provider offers access to the service via the Internet or private internal network only to selected users or within the organization. The resources are used only by this organization, which increases security, but may also be necessary for organizations such as banks – thanks to a private cloud, the data is stored in accordance with the requirements of banking law and the requirements of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority.

Hybrid cloud

It is a combination of the two previous types – some data is stored in a private cloud, and if there is a greater demand for services or resulting from the business model, you can use the public cloud. Additionally, in this model, you can use the public cloud to process data with lower security requirements, and sensitive data or critical business operations as part of the private cloud.

Social cloud

In this model, resources are shared only between organizations, such as government institutions.

Countless benefits and profits

The cloud solutions have a measurable, positive impact on the organization’s operations on three levels: economical, technological and organizational. The basic advantages of the cloud implementation are briefly presented below.

Cost minimization

In the traditional model, in which the organization has its own infrastructure for the implementation and maintenance of IT systems, one should take into account the cost of devices and their maintenance, licenses and the need to employ people responsible for infrastructure administration. Additionally, we are not able to predict whether we will use the full potential of a given solution. In the case of the cloud, all these problems are assigned to the cloud service provider – we pay only on the basis of real use, which allows us to make significant savings.

Availability

Thanks to the use of cloud solutions, it is possible to access the resources of the organization from anywhere in the world with the possibility of limiting them to appropriate groups of users. How important is the availability of services, we could experience in the last year, during the pandemic, when most organizations have implemented remote work.

Performance

Cloud computing provides the possibility of using huge infrastructure resources that are unattainable for a single organization, which means that in case of greater demand for computing power or variable customer traffic, we have the opportunity to dynamically increase the performance potential of our solutions at various times. Economic practice shows that organizations that are able to adapt to the changing market conditions will always be ahead of their competitors.

Flexibility and Scalability

In the process of the dynamic development of our organization, it is also necessary to expand the existing infrastructure. If implementing the traditional approach, we must bear in mind the fact that we are not able to infinitely add elements aimed at the infrastructure expansion to the currently used one. At some point, we will have to replace the currently used infrastructure with a new one – which takes time and additional resources, which may potentially expose the company to the loss of potential demand for its services or products. In case of the cloud, resources are may be increased infinitely. The threshold of these changes is unimaginably high for us, and the time to increase them is practically none.

Reliability

Thanks to cloud solutions, the organization does not have to take care of such aspects as the risk of the damage of the servers, and thus losing the data, or the possibility of sudden overloads. It is the cloud resource provider who guarantees the stability of services under critical circumstances.

Security

Cloud computing providers have invested a large part of their budgets to make cloud environments as secure as possible, and we are talking about billions of dollars, thanks to which the level of security of data stored in cloud solutions is at the highest level, unattainable for ordinary organizations.

Innovation

Already, organizations that have implemented cloud solutions are perceived as leaders in their industries and more and more organizations are following them, because they see great potential in such a technological and organizational approach, accelerating digital transformation, and thus the maturity of the organization and its perception as modern and innovative.

VSoft and the cloud

Of course, all the advantages of Cloud Computing Systems implementation can not be presented here, as the multitude of cloud impact on each industry should be considered separately, but it shows how huge potential lies in the technological aspects of the operation of each organization.

Recognizing the huge potential of cloud solutions, VSoft, being a supplier of innovative and modern IT solutions, enables their implementation within the cloud infrastructure. Currently, products such as VSoft Mobile Workforce, which is a solution for managing a team of field employees, and VSoft Tax Reporting – a platform for handling the entire process of public and legal settlements, are being prepared for their implementation under the cloud computing of the most popular cloud service providers – Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, and thus also within the framework of the National Cloud being built in Poland (chmurakrajowa.pl).

Grzegorz has completed IT studies and three postgraduate courses in IT, data analytics, economics and management. He has been working at VSoft for over 13 years. He is currently a business solutions architect, creating solutions in the area of reporting and taxes. Formerly a developer, a leader and a team manager. Privately, he is passionate about Polish – and not only Polish – old cars, and recently also an avid gravel rider.

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