Moving Technology to the Cloud During COVID-19

August 25, 2020

More Businesses Than Ever Before are Moving to the Cloud

The cloud is a worldwide, connected online environment that provides substantial advantages to individuals and companies alike. Cloud services are efficient and cost-effective. A large number of companies in the U.S. are starting to realize the benefits of moving their data to the cloud. As a result, the adoption of cloud services in the business sector is higher than ever before. Eighty-eight percent of respondents on a 2019 survey used the cloud for business and are expected to grow their usage over the next year. Also, 25% reported that their companies plan to move, or have already moved, all of their applications to the cloud within a similar time-frame.

Now is a Great Time to Start Using Cloud Services

As the COVID-19 outbreak changes the size and shape of the U.S. economy and forces a large number of employees to work from home, cloud service adoption in 2020 is growing at an even faster rate than expected. Although the circumstances surrounding this transition reflect the difficulties we are experiencing worldwide, this is an ideal time to start adopting cloud services.

Working from home presents technical challenges, which can be made worse by finicky VPN connections to physical hardware at the office, access speed, and storage capabilities, to name a few. A simple issue with a company file server could result in costly delays. Also, many smaller and medium-sized companies use file servers that limit the number of people that can connect remotely at the same time. This wastes time and money. On-premise infrastructure such as file servers also introduces higher IT staffing requirements and higher upfront costs when upgrades to hardware are required.

Cloud services can help alleviate many issues by providing a fast, reliable, and stable connection, an excellent storage capability, and even options for collaborative work on the same platform. Transitioning to cloud infrastructure lowers upfront costs and requires less IT staff to maintain. It also allows for much better scalability, adding additional capacity is as simple as allocating more resources to your account with the service provider rather than having to add additional servers or upgrade existing servers. Interestingly, most major cloud services also guarantee no service interruption. Patrick Babic of energy giant Centrica underscores how essential cloud services have been for the successful expansion of his business, and he doubts such expansion could have happened while relying on physical servers.

Here is How You Can Start Implementing Cloud Services

Here are a few essential steps toward implementing cloud services successfully:

1. Determine which of your business’ resources are prime candidates for a move to the cloud; this will help you select the best cloud provider for the job;
2. Assess your budgetary constraints and how much you can invest in cloud services;
3. Decide on the appropriate time-frame for a successful roll-out;
4. After selecting your cloud service provider, determine whether you need to implement infrastructure changes before rolling out cloud services across your organization;
5. Prepare your IT team to handle their new workflow, and train them to ensure they are prepared to provide support to your employees;
6. Keep your employees in the loop at all stages of the roll-out plan and prepare them to handle the new procedures required to work with the new platform.

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We are Here to Help

Here at John Lynch & Associates we regularly work with companies that are transitioning to cloud services and we specialize in supporting them with their move to the cloud, with the related employee training and with helping to implement plans and procedures to ease into a completely new workflow. Therefore, we understand that implementing big changes in a time such as this, with so many uncertainties and stressors at home as well as at work, can be scary. This is why we offer our services. We strive to provide excellent support and to make your transition as smooth and worry-free as possible. Contact us today to get started at 623.980.8018.