Cloud storage: what are the benefits?

There are several excellent reasons why businesses of all sizes are moving to cloud storage. Here is a brief guide to how cloud storage works and how it could benefit your business.

Understanding cloud storage

With business cloud storage, data is stored on servers rather than on local storage media. These servers can be owned by the business that uses them (private clouds). Alternatively, they can be owned by commercial service providers (public clouds).

In general, the larger a company is, the more likely it is to use a private cloud. This is because private clouds offer the very highest levels of security and customisability. By contrast, the smaller a company is, the more likely it is to use a public cloud. Public clouds offer the highest levels of convenience and cost-effectiveness.

The benefits of cloud storage

Using cloud storage typically improves operational efficiency as compared to using traditional storage media. Here are some of its specific, key benefits.

Data security

For many SMEs, the security of cloud storage is probably its single, biggest attraction. All businesses have to store at least some personally identifiable data. This may be just their employees’ data, but it is still covered by GDPR. Many businesses also have sensitive commercial data that it’s important for them to protect.

If an SME uses a public cloud service, the vendor will take ownership of securing the platform against external threats. All the SME has to do is manage its own user accesses. This can still be quite a challenge for smaller businesses. It is, however, much easier to manage than having to handle both sides of security.

Business continuity

Cloud storage is designed to be accessed remotely. Both private and public cloud servers are generally housed offsite in highly secure locations. These have maximum protection against both known hazards and potential disruption.

Firstly, they will be run to the very highest standards of security, both physical and digital. In particular, all staff with access to the servers will be very carefully vetted. Secondly, they will have the infrastructure in place to cope with predictable disruptions. They will have at least one backup power supply in case of power outages.

Thirdly, cloud service providers will have a process to ensure that all data is regularly backed up as standard. This ensures that hardware failures will not compromise a client’s data. With that said, they also monitor hardware performance continually and promptly swap out devices if any potential issues are detected.

In short, using cloud storage means that businesses can be confident they will always have reliable access to their data from any location (that has access to the internet). This gives them a clear and simple path to recovery from any disruption or disaster.

Support for remote and mobile working

Most businesses need to be able to support remote and/or mobile working to some extent. At a bare minimum, you need a contingency plan in case you lose access to your main workplace. For most companies, especially SMEs, the obvious solution is to have people work from home. Using cloud storage is a straightforward and affordable way to facilitate remote working.

Going beyond this is an operational decision. With that said, there are often compelling arguments for doing so, particularly for SMEs. For example, being able to support remote working can make it easier to find staff willing to work a non-standard pattern. This could mean anything from a few hours a day to evenings/nights and weekends.

Straightforward billing

With traditional storage, you have to spend a lot of money upfront to purchase hardware. You then need to pay for that hardware to be managed and replaced as necessary. It’s extremely difficult to budget accurately for these costs.

For example, hardware prices can fluctuate. Staff can leave unexpectedly (or just need an extended period out of the office). Hardware can experience mechanical failures and have to be replaced sooner than you anticipated.

This means that using traditional hardware solutions can leave businesses with painful cash-flow issues. Again, SMEs are particularly vulnerable to cash-flow disruptions. With cloud storage, you just pay for what you use. The vendor takes care of all the technical issues.

If your usage is fairly predictable, you may be able to reduce costs by signing up for a contract. You can then supplement this by accessing services on a pay-as-you-go basis if you wish. Alternatively, if you want maximum flexibility, you can simply pay as you go.

Scalability and flexibility

Cloud storage can be scaled up and down literally with a few clicks (or taps). This means that it’s perfect for delivering the sort of flexibility modern businesses need.

You don’t have to buy enough hardware to meet your peak-time demand and leave it unused the rest of the year. Likewise, you don’t have to pull back on your peak-time needs due to budget restrictions. You just buy more capacity when you need it and return it when you don’t.

Luke Watts, Managing Director of RoundWorks IT commented, "Using cloud storage also gives you the ability to fine-tune your use of storage. For example, you could choose to reserve the fastest available storage for your most business-critical applications. Other applications could be served by slower storage to reduce costs. Technically, this is possible with traditional hardware. In practice, however, it’s much more difficult to implement."

Support for a wide range of devices

Cloud storage platforms ignore both device specifications and operating systems. For example, they will work on budget Android mobile devices in the same way as on premium Macs and standard Windows PCs.

Probably the most obvious benefit of this is that employees can move seamlessly between devices. For example, an employee could write a document on their laptop and proofread it on their tablet.

A less obvious benefit of this is that it gives businesses much more flexibility when choosing their hardware. In particular, it gives businesses the option to move towards lower-specced devices. These are more economical both to buy (or lease) and to run. They also tend to have longer battery life. This is useful even for desk-based workers as it allows them to keep working for longer if there is a power outage.