If you’ve ever struggled with managing complex IT infrastructure, scaling your operations quickly, or keeping up with the latest technology trends, you’re not alone. Thankfully, cloud services offer a comprehensive solution to these common business challenges.

Cloud services provide businesses with on-demand access to a wide range of resources over the internet, including:

1. Compute and storage capabilities
2. Software applications
3. Security tools and services
4. Expert consulting and support
5. Training and skill development programs

By taking advantage of these services, you can not only reduce IT costs and improve operational efficiency but also stay agile in a rapidly changing market. Cloud providers offer the expertise and infrastructure to help you navigate your technological complexities, allowing you to spend your time focusing on your core business objectives.

That said, while cloud adoption helps with increased agility, scalability, and cost savings, it presents its own set of challenges as well. As the cloud offers endless opportunities, there’s a good chance your team might get overwhelmed—leading to missed growth opportunities or reduced resource usage. Plus, your cloud costs could quickly get out of control if you’re not sure what you’re spending on, and it can become harder to forecast expenses for new workloads.

This is where a strategic investment in cloud services can help.

In this article, we’ll explain the concept of cloud services, why you should consider using them, and how to choose the right services for your business.

What are cloud services?

Cloud services refers to the host of application and infrastructure resources and capabilities delivered via the internet through third-party vendors.
Let’s say you want to develop, run, and manage applications without managing the underlying cloud infrastructure. You could use a platform as a service (PaaS) like Microsoft Azure App Service or Google Cloud to do so.

Cloud service providers such as those listed above not only offer their own native cloud and consultative services, but also the ability to leverage third-party resources like Databricks—a cloud-based data analytics and artificial intelligence platform that provides a shared environment for data processing, machine learning, and collaborative data science workflows.

Ultimately, these providers help companies implement and optimize cloud technologies to make the most of the services they’re using.
Say, for instance, cloud costs are getting out of control and you don’t have the internal expertise to dig into your data to understand why they’re rising or if your bill is appropriate for your current needs. In that case, you’d find value in working with cloud consultants who can pinpoint areas of inefficiency.

Cloud services vs. on-premises solutions

On-premise solutions refer to hardware or software solutions that are stored in a physical center as opposed to being hosted remotely in the cloud. Typically, technology providers move away from on-premises solutions for the following reasons:

• Cost: On-premises centers require high capital expenditures for hardware and software licenses, while the cloud uses a pay-as-you-go or subscription model, allowing better control.
• Infrastructure: On-premises solutions are also limited by their physical infrastructure, and scaling resources up or down requires significant time and resources. But with the cloud, that’s not the case.
• Maintenance and updates: Maintenance is a harder bargain with on-premises solutions because your in-house team is responsible for everything. With cloud services, your provider or external consulting partner handles the maintenance, updates, and security patches.
• Disaster recovery: Disaster recovery is a challenge when you consider how many off-site backups you’ll need in the future. However, cloud services from an external provider usually come with built-in redundancies at a fraction of the cost.
• Agility and innovation: While on-premises has its advantages, agility isn’t one of them. Due to hardware constraints and upgrade cycles, you’ll be slower in adopting new technologies. With the cloud, you’re focused on achieving your goals without worrying about compatibility.

That’s why cloud service investments have paid off for many companies. A PwC report found that business and technology executives have experienced improved profitability, productivity, and faster time to market. This finding shows why the cloud is becoming the default option.

How businesses are benefiting from cloud adoption (Source)

Why should you invest in cloud service solutions?

Whether you have an entire team of engineers or a relatively smaller team, engaging with a cloud services partner can have a lot of benefits. Here’s what you can expect:

Optimize the cloud and scale as needed

If you’re using on-premises solutions, you’ll run into issues like large hardware investments and downtime when adding more applications. As a result, you’ll wait days, if not weeks, to get a simple application up and running, not to mention dealing with hundreds of lost hours of productivity.

With the cloud, that’s not the case anymore. You can scale up during peak times to handle increased loads or scale down during quieter periods.

Let’s say you’re dealing with a slow month or need fewer resources than usual for any reason. You can power off your computation resources when you don’t need them. So, you only pay for resources when you need them and always operate at optimal efficiency.

While cloud services offer easy access to resources, it’s common for organizations to inadvertently accumulate unnecessary or underutilized services over time, leading to inflated costs. This unintentional “cloud bloat” can quickly offset the financial benefits of cloud adoption. To avoid this, consider working with providers like DoiT to optimize cloud spending.

Decrease investment in your infrastructure

When you use cloud services, you don’t have to invest in aspects like:

• Purchasing hardware
• Maintaining on-premises infrastructure
• Upgrading or replacing expensive hardware

The pay-as-you-go model shifts IT spending from capital to operational expenditures, freeing up money for more strategic investments.

Also, you don’t have to deal with indirect costs like physical space, power, cooling, or on-site IT support. Cloud services can handle all of this while you focus on more pressing business activities.

Go to market faster using the cloud

Speed to market is a competitive advantage. But with on-premises environments, that’s difficult even if you have the right resources and processes. Utilizing cloud services can significantly reduce the time it takes to launch new environments and deploy applications.

You can provision resources in minutes instead of weeks (or months) because you’re no longer waiting for the physical parts to come through procurement. This approach lets you test new ideas and respond to market changes faster than your competitors.

According to McKinsey, these value drivers could deliver more than $3 trillion in EBITDA value—just across Forbes Global 2000 companies alone.

How Forbes Global 2000 companies could benefit from the value drivers of the cloud (Source)

Experience faster processing speed

Cloud services are distributed by nature. You can take advantage of parallel processing capabilities across multiple servers and perform complex computations in minutes. If you’re running data-intensive applications, you won’t be slowed down by your infrastructure.

Also, you can choose different computing instances depending on your workload. For example, access high-performing cloud services for intensive instances like scientific simulations or deep learning. As a result, it’s no longer expensive (relatively) to run these instances.

Enhanced reliability through service commitments and support

Unlike on-premises solutions, cloud services often come with robust service-level agreements (SLAs) that guarantee a certain level of reliability. These agreements guarantee a specific level of service quality and if the vendor fails to do so, it’s compensated.

For example, if a service guarantees 99% SLA, you can expect a maximum of 43 minutes of downtime in a month—indicating its ability to support your business at all times.

This capability is critical when it comes to security and compliance. These SLAs often include commitments to data encryption and backups, regular security audits, and rapid response times to potential threats. As a result, you’ll always have the peace of mind that your operations are supported with reliable infrastructure.

Such providers are able to do this through redundant systems (duplicate systems), distributed data centers, and advanced failover mechanisms. For example, if one server experiences an issue, it switches to a backup server, promising continuous service delivery.

Cloud services like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services offer up to 99.9% SLAs.

What kinds of cloud services are available these days?

Cloud services have changed drastically over the years depending on business needs and use cases. Let’s review the main types of solutions available today:

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

IaaS is the most fundamental computing model. With IaaS, cloud services offer virtualized computing resources over the internet. This could range from virtual machines to storage containers to networks.

You’re responsible for managing the operating system, data storage, and deployed application. However, your cloud provides and manages the hardware infrastructure, giving you a high degree of control over your IT resources. Even though it might seem as if you scale as needed, it’s harder than it seems. Also, you can expect increasing costs as the model relies on consumption-based pricing.

Amazon EC2 falls under this category. You can use it to launch virtual machines with different configurations of CPU, memory, and cloud storage capacity. Install any app and pay for the time you spend using the infrastructure.

IaaS architecture (Source)

Platform as a service (PaaS)

PaaS takes cloud computing a step further by providing the infrastructure and the tools/platform for application development and cloud deployment. You can expect to get access to the following:

• Operating systems
• Software development tools
• Database management systems
• Additional middleware

For example, Heroku lets developers deploy apps on its cloud platform and even provides built-in managed services like databases, caching, and monitoring. It handles scaling, automation, load balancing, and application updates as well, so your team can focus on doing the work.

PaaS architecture (Source)

These services can be significantly more expensive compared to IaaS, and you could be locked into long-term contracts with no flexibility. Also, PaaS platforms are known to have integration issues with certain hardware or software components, and migrating data can be a challenge. You’d find more value in working with a cloud expert such as DoiT during this process to avoid these issues.

Software as a service (SaaS)

SaaS is by far the most popular computing model—yet it’s also the most abstract model available. You can deliver entire applications over the internet without asking your users to install and run them on their computers or infrastructure.

You can access these apps through a web browser or mobile app, and your cloud provider handles the entire backend process for you. This includes aspects like security, availability, and performance.

For example, Salesforce is an incumbent customer relationship management (CRM) solution. If a user wants to access the app, they have to log in and take advantage of its features. They pay a monthly subscription fee, but Salesforce manages everything else.

SaaS architecture (Source)

There’s a potential risk of dealing with vendor lock-in and the lack of customization options, depending on the type of software. If you’re a larger enterprise with extensive needs but aren’t sure how to make the most of the service, the costs could get out of control over time.

Functions as a service (FaaS)

FaaS, also known as serverless computing, lets developers execute individual functions or pieces of business logic without managing the underlying infrastructure. You only pay for the compute time your function uses (down to the millisecond), making it cost-effective for teams with unpredictable usage patterns.

However, given the nature of the service, your functions could be distributed over multiple areas, increasing security risks. You could also deal with increased costs because of frequent function invocations and find it challenging to manage all this down the line.

AWS Lambda is a FaaS platform that allows you to write individual functions in Python or Java. Once you have the function, upload it and run it through Lambda. It automatically scales the execution environment based on the number of incoming requests.

FaaS architecture (Source)

Anything as a service (XaaS)

XaaS is an umbrella term for all cloud computing and remote access services. In short, you can access any IT function as a cloud service, such as data as a service (DaaS), network as a service (NaaS), or storage as a service (STaaS).

Instead of building and maintaining a function, you can cherry-pick the cloud computing services you need and create a customized and efficient cloud environment that helps your business.

How are cloud services used in modern organizations?

Cloud services impact every business unit and transform the way you do business. Here’s how most organizations use them these days:

• Digital transformation: Cloud services give you the platform for experimentation and innovation due to your ability to go to market faster. For example, fintech solutions like JPMorganChase use a multicloud strategy to run risk models and offer new digital banking services.
• Big data and analytics: You can use cloud-based services to analyze large datasets without up-front investment in hardware or software. For example, artificial intelligence (AI), or more specifically machine learning (ML) technologies, are mostly used for malware threat detection or business process automation. They assist with such use cases by crunching the data continuously and providing recommendations based on that. Vendors like Amazon and Google offer similar ML services based on your needs.
• Serverless computing: Serverless architectures let engineering teams focus on writing code and reduce operational complexity. In addition, you reduce the costs and resource requirements associated with computation.
• DevOps and continuous integration/deployment: The cloud also allows you to use DevOps practices effectively. Instead of waiting days to deploy code, you can do it hundreds of times within the same day (compared to on-premises environments).
• Security and compliance: Many organizations use their cloud service provider’s security certifications to meet their own regulatory requirements. For example, DoiT Cloud Intelligence™ is SOC 2, SOC 3, and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliant. As a result, if you’re using this platform to optimize your cloud spending, you don’t have to worry about being noncompliant as per regulatory requirements.

How to choose the right cloud services for your business

Choosing the right cloud service provider informs how you spend cloud resources and whether you’ll actually achieve the efficiency you’re hoping for. Here’s how you can approach this process:

• Start with a needs assessment: It’s best to dig deep through your entire IT infrastructure, understand your business goals, and revisit your cloud strategy. Are you looking to reduce costs or improve security/scalability as well? For example, if security or compliance is an issue, you might want to keep a few services on-premises for the time being and migrate the rest to the cloud. Also, consider the use case for your needs, as that would dictate where the cloud application sits.
• Evaluate scalability and flexibility: Search for providers that offer autoscaling capabilities. You’ll be assured of optimal performance if they adjust resources on demand. Also, review whether the provider offers support for hybrid cloud and multicloud deployments. If you’re going “all in” on the cloud, you need that flexibility to run workloads on different servers or centers.
• Review SLAs: Ideally, your cloud service provider should offer more than 95% uptime—if not 99%. Check if it provides round-the-clock support with dedicated account managers (for enterprise accounts). This tells you if the service will truly support you during the migration and implementation process. Also, ask your provider about their average response times across severity levels. This way, you can set expectations beforehand—and you’ll know when to expect a response.
• Analyze the costs: When you’re evaluating cloud service providers, remember that pricing is dynamic. Some providers offer a pay-as-you-go model, while others have a flat subscription fee. However, you can also expect additional training, management, and migration costs. These aren’t included in the actual subscription, so make sure you inquire beforehand. It helps to have a good pricing negotiator to do this on your behalf, considering providers are willing to provide higher discounts if you’re an enterprise customer.

For instance, at DoiT we offer SLAs between 30 minutes and 12 business hours, depending on the severity level of the issue. On average, it takes us 1 day and 19 hours to resolve issues. If you need that level of reliability, get in touch with our team to learn how we can help.

Tap into cloud experts to choose the right solution
Migrating to the cloud doesn’t have to be a challenge. If you have thorough evaluation criteria and a clear idea about your business goals, you’ll be able to choose a provider that handles everything for you.
That said, whether you’re looking for help migrating to the cloud or optimizing cloud spending, work with practitioners who have experience with these challenges. DoiT’s teams of cloud experts enable you with the right processes, frameworks, and enablement resources to get you up to speed.
If you’re planning on migrating or optimizing your cloud spend, get in touch with a DoiT expert to learn how you can do it without any hassle.