Widespread migration to the cloud is already underway, especially here in Australia. Ask any IT decision maker in the SME sector how they feel about cloud-computing and how they use it to meet today’s dynamic business needs, and what will they say? Likely you’ll find that, unsurprisingly, the majority see the benefits of cloud migration, and are already planning to expand the types of IT services they use and/or support in the cloud in the coming years.
With Gartner predicting that 2017 will see spending in the public cloud services market reach $6.5 billion, there is no questions that the uptake of cloud in the SME sector has played a major role in transforming the IT department, particularly in the delivery of IT services. In Australia, we have seen a widespread migration to the cloud, with organisations adopting the platform for its scalability and flexible pricing structure.
Taking into account how many fundamental applications and business systems cloud can support, it’s not difficult to see why so many organisations are jumping on the cloud bandwagon and embracing this technology. The number of organisations using cloud is expected to rise even further as more companies discover the benefits of hosting and supporting their network monitoring tools in the cloud.
For small-business owners, moving to the cloud really should be as easy as 1, 2 and 3.
1. Flexibility
Not all cloud services are created equal, and IT administrators need various options for their monitoring solutions. If there are no common platforms used in a hybrid network, multiple methods are needed for monitoring. This kind of unified monitoring platform allows IT administrators to monitor both private and public cloud, as well as their traditional IT infrastructure, at one time.
2. Scalability
Hybrid cloud models offer scalability for organisations. If demand for computing resources spikes or increases, even temporarily, the company can scale their resouces by outsourcing at least some of the processing to a public cloud. In turn, this allows the company’s data centre to manage normal traffic loads rather than investing in more resources to manage peak loads.
3. Enables SMEs to take strategic risks
Cloud monitoring can enable companies to take a critical first step towards full visbility of their network and IT assets, no matter where they are housed. This can allow companies to take necessary information from their IT infrastructure and minimising risks (IT-wise) as well as downtime, while also making strategic contributions in securing the company’s future.
It is expected that the continued adoption of the cloud trend will, over the next few years, drastically change the work and environment for system administrators around Australia and in all organisations. This process will move faster or slower for every organisation and industry, depending on types of applications and usage rates.
While there will remain a small set of applications that can’t move to the cloud, it is clear that this trend is already underway and is anticipated to touch all organisations in the future if it hasn’t already, and IT admins will need to build up their cloud knowledge now to truly understand the implications for security and reliability.
It is evident that understanding the growing adoption of cloud is crucial to IT administrators, particularly as we continue to see more SMEs leverage this model, together with existing on-premise applications, to better manage local area networks, switches and data rooms.
George Wilson, Director of Sales Operations – APAC, Paessler
