Cloud architecture refers to the design of a cloud computing environment including the hardware, software, and networking components that make up the system. Cloud provides multiple choices, from simple Software as a Service (SaaS) where the customer is responsible for data, identities, devices and information with shared responsibility for identity and directory infrastructure; to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) where the customer is responsible for everything but the physical hosts, network and datacenter. Here are some key benefits of using cloud architecture, backed by research:
Cost savings: Studies show that organizations using cloud computing can gain significant savings to their IT costs compared to those using on-premises infrastructure. You might ask how these cost savings can be achieved. Cloud computing uses a "pay-as-you-go" model--you only pay for what you use. Moving to the cloud will also help organizations reduce their energy consumption and lower their carbon footprint by reducing the amount of "real estate" needed to run their business. You won't need a dedicated datacenter to run your business.
Scalability: Cloud architecture enables organizations to easily scale up or down their computing resources as demand for resources increases and decreases, eliminating on-premise or hosted hardware that is idle for much of its uptime. This helps organizations to quickly respond to changing business needs and reduce the risk of over or under provisioning resources. One study from IDC found that organizations using the cloud saw an average of 68% faster time to market and 74% faster time to value.
Reliability: Cloud providers offer high levels of uptime and reliability, thanks to their judicious use of redundancy in hardware, software and other means to reduce outages. This provides the company the ability to avoid costly downtime and lost productivity. The top three Cloud providers (Google AWS and Microsoft Azure) all have SLA's of at least 99.9%. This translates to slightly less than 9 hours of downtime per year. This results in more customer engagement for the company, which can mean increased profits for the company.
Security: Cloud providers invest heavily in security measures to protect their customers' data and applications. This does not eliminate breaches, however it takes the bulk of the mitigation away from the company and places it in the hands of the provider. Customer Data Security and Integrity is vital to the survival of any Cloud Provider, and all the providers not only take care to secure their physical datacenters and prevent intrusion, but they also provide a means by where Company IT teams can monitor their data for breaches.
Flexibility: Cloud architecture enables organizations to easily switch between different types of resources, providing the flexibility to choose the best resources for their specific needs. Application deployment can be easily automated with tools provided by the vendor; and those automation tools can be used repeatedly to deploy new or update applications seamlessly and securely.
Overall, cloud architecture offers a range of benefits that can help organizations improve their efficiency, reduce costs, and better serve their customers. By leveraging the scalability, reliability, security, and flexibility of the cloud, organizations can focus on their core business objectives, rather than the underlying IT infrastructure.
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