{"id":156,"date":"2016-05-23T13:28:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T20:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/blog\/?p=156"},"modified":"2016-05-23T13:28:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T20:28:05","slug":"year-boss-finally-says-moving-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/blog\/cloud\/year-boss-finally-says-moving-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"The Year When Your Boss Finally Says \u201cWe\u2019re moving to the Cloud!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

So you\u2019ve just been pulled into a meeting and someone on your team thought to themselves what a marvelous idea they had for improving the business by moving to the cloud and you decided to Google: \u201cHow do I convince my boss they're making a terrible IT decision?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a perfectly normal assessment, you wouldn\u2019t be the first to suggest such radical thinking. There\u2019s just something magically coercive when the upper echelon of management hears the word \u201ccloud\u201d and are then lured by its marketing charm like a lost sailor to the sounds of money-grubbing sirens.<\/p>\n

Whether your ship has already set sail to the cloud or you\u2019re just preparing to lift anchor at shore, here are a few rebuttals you can present to your boss, colleagues or just some schmuck off the streets. Let\u2019s break down a few popular misunderstandings they will need before embracing \u201cfull speed ahead\u201d onto this trending odyssey.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone and our competitors are going to the cloud! It makes sense!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

It does in fact make sense. According to the 2016 State of the Cloud report: this year\u2019s growth for businesses planning to adopt to a cloud setting are trending upward with 29 percent of all SMBs by 2017 and by 51 percent by 2020.<\/p>\n

\"Courtesy<\/a>

Courtesy of BetterCloudBlog.com<\/p><\/div>\n

However, statistics and invisible numbers aside, migrating to the cloud is not for the faint of heart. Either do it right or don\u2019t do it at all. Just like every other popular trend out there, use at your own risk.<\/p>\n

Moving to the cloud is actually a lot like signing up for LASIK eye surgery. If done correctly, you reap the benefits! If done poorly, then guess who has to live with it? The cloud can be a powerful vessel for taking your business to the next level, but if you don\u2019t build it right, it\u2019s going to cause leaks on your ship.<\/p>\n

\u201cA properly integrated cloud solution will give an immediate return on investment.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In how long? Months or years immediately? This particular estimation is extremely give-or-take no matter how many ways you look at it. Not all cloud-based solutions are solutions to every problem.<\/p>\n

There are many factors for what will be affected, including how much of an influence staff working times will improve, uptime differences for seasonal fluctuations or heavy site traffic days, hardware savings on server upgrades or replacements; everything that the cloud impacts on your business operations can be a tangible outcome.<\/p>\n

The \u201cimmediate\u201d ROI (return on investment) realistically will take some time to measure those actual savings depending on how much the cloud affects your business model. Luckily, cloud-based plans are a pay-as-you-use service and collected through monthly subscriptions, so there\u2019s no real issue with affording the cloud, just time to know how much money you\u2019re making off it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll save a ton in costs with this great cloud provider (I just looked up)!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cost is more than just a price tag, it\u2019s also time and effort for what you\u2019ll be giving up in order to implement a cloud solution. Cost is always a major concern and we\u2019re happy to tell you to look no further, but keep looking anyways. The cloud might bring with it a brevity of new possibilities and cheaper options as technology continues to advance. Just don\u2019t get shortsighted from the cloud glamour if it\u2019s not benefitting your business long-term.<\/p>\n

Cloud providers typically offer fair competitive ranges in pricing options. With a vast amount of scalability to suit your business size and growth, this typically results in cost-effective investments. You can save upwards of thousands in capital expenses so you can budget to other areas of your business just by utilizing some of the benefits of cloud computing. These benefits that a cloud provider can bring to your business includes:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Software licensing (a smorgasbord of a nightmare for IT folks, trust us).<\/li>\n
  • Ease of hardware\/software integration (ever tried installing a program that worked on your Windows PC, or Linux but it didn\u2019t work on your other computers? Yeah, cloud integration is about 100 times more difficult).<\/li>\n
  • Subscription-based pricing (mark your budget for cloud services as OpEx rather than capital for taxes).<\/li>\n
  • Gives more control to business users (able to easily manage and select your services instead of solely relying on IT).<\/li>\n
  • Hardware, bandwidth, cooling, and power maintenance can be left managed by cloud providers (leaving you free to concentrate on more important priorities).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    These traits far outweigh the costs of keeping applications and services in traditional or legacy models, eventually creating more value and productivity to your business.<\/p>\n

    The best benefits cloud vendors can offer you is by letting you customize to your heart\u2019s content. They should lend support to your business on the technical side and help minimize extra burdens you may or may not want for yourself such as managing all of the physical hardware powering your network so you can relax and let the IT people do the IT stuff.<\/p>\n

    Just be wary that your specific needs are effectively being met during consultation.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe\u2019ll cut costs with less pesky IT contractors!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The landscape for IT has been in a constant state of flux because of the social impact that cloud computing has done for many businesses these days. You have to ask yourself how cloud providers, provide for you. What is it that you can gain from using the technology?<\/p>\n

    Even if you\u2019re in the middle of migrating to a cloud infrastructure right now, you\u2019re probably thinking where does my IT staff fit in this picture?<\/p>\n

    Traditionally, IT departments usually served within many business-owned data centers and maintained all their operations in a warm, cozy, and safe NOC (Network Operations Center). If any problems did occur, it was most likely only a few steps away for floor management to get to the direct source.<\/p>\n

    However, cloud adoption doesn\u2019t mean throwing your IT staff overboard by cutting them loose once you migrate. It can free them up to concentrate on other important tasks like: security technology, application development, and business analytics. Cutting down on IT maintenance is always a factor for businesses when budgeting every year.<\/p>\n

    Nevertheless, having an on-site IT consultant (especially a systems administrator) is still vital for your business to continue functioning and to flourish for the future.<\/p>\n

    Bottom Line: It comes down to weighing where your business is at right now and where you see it going in the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    There are many incentives that a cloud model will become a staple part of every business from here on out. It can take and transport your data safely and securely. Your communication network will be at its best potential. There\u2019s no more downtime and you won\u2019t lose out on any more customers or clients because of \u201cerror 404, page not found.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Moving to the cloud, at its core, should come down to weighing your options. Make sure your business actually needs the cloud right here and now. By all means, embrace the cloud\u2026 if you need data integration in an online storage for staff to access anytime or if you need secured systems applications ready for employees to work away from the office or maybe you want to have an easier time managing the hardware infrastructure for your servers.<\/p>\n

    If for many reasons not, that\u2019s perfectly fine. The \u201ccloud\u201d merely serves as a blueprint for setting a course into a future, morphing the current technology that\u2019s available at the present. That future is one where everyone can feel like their working at 100%. When working more feels like working less because it\u2019s just made life that much more easier. That is the true value of the cloud.<\/p>\n

    Whatever the outcome to go cloud or bust, here at Wowrack we wish the bold visionaries out there a safe and rewarding journey with the cloud. Good luck and bon voyage!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    So you\u2019ve just been pulled into a meeting and someone on your team thought to themselves what a marvelous idea they had for improving the business by moving to the cloud and you decided to Google: \u201cHow do I convince my boss they're making a terrible IT decision?\u201d It\u2019s a perfectly normal assessment, you wouldn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":12856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[946],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud","post-wrapper"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wowrack.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}