Few Interesting Things About Cloud and Its Trend Among Businesses

“Couple of years from now Cloud has been a ‘buzzword’ only but now it became reality for various businesses Said by a famous researcher. Yes, it’s true. Debate is over now and researchers have come  to the conclusion that cloud-based application is the pre-eminent and flexible working practise for the businesses. From small to medium size enterprises of different sectors adopting this trend. It not only promises flexibility of working but also provides incredible benefits to an enterprise in the form of growth, collaboration, agility, speed, cost and more.

A survey has been conducted by hbr.org across many IT companies and report says about 84% people adopted the cloud technology, 40% people felt their revenue has  increased, while 38%  experienced increase in their profit margin, apart from these 39% people also  thought that their data security has  increased after the use of cloud technology. This shows things are really changing & getting interesting. Undoubtedly, the benefits of cloud are encouraging more and more people to use it for core business system.

Know here what higher authorities and users from distinct corner of the world think about the cloud technology- 

Dr. Adam Marshall, executive director of policy, British Chambers of Commerce, Stated that: “Flexible and remote working are crucial for companies across Britain, and cloud-based files and applications make this possible. Businesses are working in new and different ways, but easy access to information and communication tools are absolutely essential. Everything suggests that businesses dependence on the cloud is growing, and will continue to increase in future.”

Wakefield Research:

“According to research 97 percent are actually using cloud services today via online shopping, banking, social networking and file sharing in America. Despite this confusion, three in five (59 percent) believe the “workplace of the future” will exist entirely in the cloud, which indicates people feel it’s time to figure out the cloud or risk being left behind in their professional lives”

Studies and research also says that 72 % of employees feel, cloud has made easy collaboration with their colleague, as it allows to quickly share the information and can work cooperatively from any corner of the world. Especially the sales department they can work collaboratively with the engineers, developers, designers and other service departments.

As the cloud is becoming widespread, many  big queries are being raised among businesses: e.g. How to buy cloud Storage? Who is  responsible for data accessing? How to get control of it? How much secure it is to work on cloud?

So here I would like to add answers to  all the above questions that really matter to every business and organisation when  it plans to switch over to cloud –

How to buy cloud Storage?

There are various companies in the market that deliver cloud services. But some are very popular and secured such as- OneDrive, Dropbox, Office 365, Google Drive and Amazon.

All of these offer the best value cloud storage services by moving all your files, folders, documents, videos and photos online to the cloud. By giving you the guaranteed security as well as the things which are important to you is also maintained by the cloud storage company. Many companies offer the free services for small files and document storage but you need to pay after the free storage limit over. Where, every company has their different free storage limit. However, difficulty comes when you need to choose the best file storage provider that fulfill all your business requirement at best. So for your ease here I am providing you an example of Cloud storage comparison of year 2015 in the table below –

Meanwhile, the above comparison is just for the reference that will help you to take the right decision, but comparison data may vary according to time.

The similar comparison approach you can opt before buying any cloud services for your business. This way you can buy right cloud service at minimum spending. 

Who has system & data access control?

The customer has total control of it to maintain the highest degree of security, accuracy, and auditability. It’s up to you to whom you want to give the access control of all the particular things for example you can authenticate login request to the users in various ways by identifying the different users you need for your particular application, or you can configure user profiles or IP-based login restrictions if you want to give limited access to the users based on the different functions, also you may provide authentication simply by giving username/password to the person.

How to audit data modification?

Cloud storage service provider gives you details about  the whole history of the data. So, one can easily audit and  know who has changed the value or data in the reports, when it was changed and what is the value before and after the changes are done. All the data is  available to you on few mouse clicks.

How much secure to work on cloud?

Security is still the biggest concern for those who have not used  the cloud services yet; so here I have come up  with some research based results made by hbr.org for you, which will give you a broader view to understand the data security at cloud. If we see 39% of respondents are neutral about the security, while 10% people think cloud has decreased security level. But I feel the data security completely depends upon the provider’s security practices. Therefore be careful before choosing the cloud service provider. Opt the one that best suits your needs. Remember, you will share confidential data with them. Hence, do complete research of the security policy of the companies before choosing the one.

Do not ever share password with anyone. Did you know that 90 percent of all passwords can be cracked within seconds?

So, before taking any decision examine all the major cloud players, and discover which may suits you the best.