For many businesses, the cloud has become a buzzword akin to the growing prominence of electric vehicles. The technology driving both may be faster and more efficient, but the costs and complexities introduced by such a change are daunting. Your on-prem solution for data storage and analytics may be showing its age, but it seems to work for your organization.
But while gas-powered cars are more affordable — for now — your business faces far more pressure than the car buyers. Competitors are already enjoying the speed, flexibility, and reduced expenses of the cloud. If you work in health care, insurance, finance, or manufacturing, your organization’s reliance on outdated technology will leave you falling behind.
Realistically, the core issue with the cloud isn’t if it’s right for your business. It’s a question of when you can start a migration. However, with the right approach, your organization can make the shift sooner than you may think.
The Transformative Advantages of Migrating to the Cloud
For those unfamiliar with how the cloud will transform your business, the technology merits an introduction. Simply put, the cloud shifts the physical responsibility of data storage from your business to an outside cloud provider.
Instead of managing all that computing power and infrastructure, your data is hosted on virtual machines from Amazon’s AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure. Shifting responsibility for your data storage to another company amounts to a major shift from relying on an on-prem environment.
When you use SAS for your on-premises data tools, you can migrate your analytics application to the cloud with SAS Viya. Along with retaining the same analytics provider, businesses moving to the cloud also enjoy the following gains:
Scalability and Cost-Effectiveness
When your business relies on an on-prem environment, you have to absorb the upfront costs of buying enough hardware space to suit your busiest times. This is inefficient on a few levels. First, you have to buy racks of server space to accommodate demands faced only during certain parts of the year. Second, you have to schedule time with a specialist to install and integrate whatever new servers are necessary for more storage.
When your data is stored in the cloud, you can accommodate usage spikes and resolve capacity issues through your provider with a few clicks. When periods of demand end, you can then scale back your storage requirements just as quickly. The cloud offers the flexibility to adjust to your business needs and only pay for what you need.
Centralized Storage for Faster Decision-Making
The cloud is flexible enough to support storing your data in a single solution, which delivers faster decision-making. Rather than manually compiling data from multiple sources, your analysts can access the information they need in a single view.
For example, an insurance company can forecast different risk elements and make better predictions on their investments and their customers. They can also use the cloud to automate processes and increase collaboration because data is no longer siloed. In the end, the cloud increases the visibility and accessibility of your data.
Increased Security and Stability
From an IT perspective, your concerns with the cloud are security and maintaining proper data governance. While every day brings news of another high-profile breach, the cloud offers added support for your data infrastructure. When you maintain your on-prem data stack, your teams are effectively on their own handling security and system updates.
Plus, in the event of an equipment failure or other issue with a data center, you gain an additional layer of protection for disaster recovery with proactive updates and system backups. The cloud offers your organization a powerful ally in managing the security and maintenance of your data.
Streamlined System Integrations Through APIs
A cloud solution allows seamless integrations with other data tools through API integrations. As the cloud closes the gap between your business and its data, you also improve your ability to use these resources in a way that’s faster, easier, and more secure.
Once your business is in the cloud, you can connect your solution to the systems you need regardless of whether they’re cloud-based. Whether your organization uses Azure, AWS or Google, an IT partner like Zencos has the ability and experience to code the API connections you need to develop an all-in-one cloud solution.
Addressing Cloud Migration Concerns
A cloud migration constitutes a fundamental shift in the way your business maintains its data and analytics tools. In reviewing these changes, many of the barriers to a cloud migration can be broken down in the following ways:
A Loss of Control Over Security and Maintenance
Rather than gaining the assurance that comes with managing all of your systems, the cloud requires that you relinquish a level of control over a precious asset: Your business information.
However, with that loss of control comes additional support. Cloud providers are invested in assuring their services remain stable, secure, and satisfy regulatory standards. The support teams at AWS or Azure are extensions of your resources dedicated to those goals.
Plus, when you work with an IT partner like Zencos, you gain two expert administrators to handle the maintenance and security of your cloud-based environment. Under our managed service plan, your organization can ensure its cloud architecture remains stable, secure, and continues to serve your business needs.
Compromised Flexibility
Partnering with a cloud provider leads to a fear of vendor lock-in. For example, if you opt to use AWS as your cloud provider, you’re locked into Amazon’s ecosystem to update your system for the duration of the contract.
However, when you work with the right IT partner, you can still access whatever tools your business needs. At Zencos, we’ll stand up a new cloud environment and configure its connections to on-prem or cloud resources. To manage SAS in the cloud, you need specialized technical support experienced in Kubernetes. Zencos has the right skills for your needs.
Cost of Migration
With the right support, moving to the cloud doesn’t have to break your budget. If you attempt a partial migration while keeping some data stored on prem, you’ll need additional resources as your environment grows more complex. Soon, your migration stalls before it can truly begin.
However, if you work with Zencos, you can start your cloud journey in stages. You can move a fraction of your business to support a particular use case. For example, you can use a minimum viable product (MVP) in the cloud that optimizes how your organization handles tasks such as stress-testing, financial planning, and portfolio analytics. This MVP will also seamlessly integrate with the rest of your system processes.
With this proof of concept, you’ll identify the advantages of the cloud offering a way forward for your data. If this sounds like a move that will transform your business, we should talk.