6 Ways Cloud Speeds Up and Enhances Performance
The need to increase the speed of IT service delivery is one of the most important reasons for companies to choose the Cloud. 42% of professionals say that improving network performance is one of the most important reasons for transitioning to the Cloud. The larger your company, the more important performance becomes. In fact, in companies with more than 1,000 employees, 76% of the leaders who participated in the survey say they have adopted the Cloud to increase the speed of IT service delivery.
How does the Cloud accelerate your business? Here are six ways:
1) BETTER NETWORK PERFORMANCE
According to a survey by INAP, network performance was the number one reason companies transitioned to the Cloud in 2019 (it was third in 2018). The reason for this change is customer retention. Performance doesn't just affect your IT teams; if your systems don't work, you'll likely lose customers. Retaining an existing customer is 5 to 25 times cheaper than acquiring a new one, so network performance directly impacts a company's bottom line. Two key elements of network performance are low latency and high availability, both of which are typically improved by transitioning to the Cloud. Low latency is achieved as Cloud providers often support data with storage close to your user base. High availability is supported by 24/7 teams dedicated to the Cloud.
2) UPTIME GUARANTEES
A Cloud provider will offer you an uptime guarantee (and, in return, your systems will be nearly available 24/7). Atlassian's Premium Cloud guarantees 99.9% uptime and offers service credits if this Service Level Agreement is not met. In the Cloud Enterprise plan, this financial guarantee is increased to 99.95%. Both plans include 24/7 support with a one-hour or less response time.
3) AUTOMATIC PERFORMANCE UPGRADES
Automatic upgrades improve performance and eliminate latency while also eliminating the need for manual upgrades. This means you can always access the best-performing tools and never fall behind your competitors.
4) FASTER DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT
Another way Cloud outperforms on-premises models in the speed department is through continuous integration (a practice of synchronizing developers' work throughout the day) and continuous delivery (rapid and regular deployment of small software changes). CI and CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment) are best practices for both DevOps and Agile and while it's difficult to determine exact numbers, their adoption seems to be widespread.
The primary benefit of CI is that it speeds up your team as they prepare for deployment, while CD is useful because it introduces changes to your users faster and in smaller, reversible increments in case of an incident.
With the Cloud, you can instantly access more computational power and more machines, meaning you can run CI/CD tasks concurrently, significantly speeding up these foundational applications.
5) AUTOMATIC SCALING AND LOAD BALANCING
In on-premises models, computational power is always limited. You have a specific number of servers, load balancers, and a certain amount of power. This means that if your user base grows rapidly or unexpectedly, your systems may slow down or, worse, crash. With automatic scaling in the Cloud, computational power scales as needed to handle unexpected spikes in usage.
6) STANDARDIZATION
Some teams use the transition to the Cloud as an opportunity to streamline internal processes and increase speed both within and outside their tools. Transitioning to the Cloud is an opportunity to take a deep dive into workflows, documents, and team applications and ask yourself what is taking you closer to your overall business goals.
MOVING FROM ON-PREMISES TO THE CLOUD
In general, transitioning to the Cloud is likely to increase performance, product development, and process speed. However, a not-always-fast part of this process is moving from on-premises to the Cloud.
To do migrations well, you need a migration plan.
Moving your assets to the Cloud involves testing applications, taking bandwidth limitations into account, and allocating suitable internal and external resources for the migration.
A small company with a single server and no integrated services can complete the transition in less than a week - but that is the fastest scenario. Most companies are dealing with more complex setups, including integrated email, document pools, and communication systems. The larger and more integrated your systems are, the longer your migration may take.
The industry average is about one to two months, with larger companies and complex setups sometimes taking more than four months.
And this is just the technical side of the process. After your systems have been moved, you need to train your employees, ensure cultural and team alignment in your new systems, account for the time needed to reflect changes in workflow and processes, and update all internal documents.
The key idea here is that transitioning to the Cloud should be seen from a long-term perspective, as it takes both time and budget to reach a more agile and cost-effective place. Studies have shown that Cloud applications have increased employee productivity by 13% and saved businesses an average of 20% on-premises.