It’s hard to imagine that just ten years ago, in 2006, the term “cloud computing” hadn’t been invented yet. By definition, cloud means an IT system or application that lives in a remote datacenter and is managed by a third party provider, as opposed to residing on a server in the customer’s location. Companies large and small had all of their IT systems running on servers and software that lived within the company’s walls.
Fast forward just ten years to 2016, and it’s hard to find a business that does not use the cloud for some part of their IT. While it used to be that decision makers had to be convinced why they should trust the cloud for a certain service, today it’s hard to make an argument why certain things should not live in the cloud. Why the complete shift?
Here are four reasons why 2017 will be "the year of the cloud:"
Functionality
First and foremost, in 2006 there were very few things you could do in “the cloud.” Simple POP3 email was one of them, as each of your devices’ inboxes never synced with each other. In the past decade, there has been a focus to build all new technology offerings as cloud solutions rather than
on-premise systems.
Connectivity
Critical to using anything in the cloud is your ability to connect to the cloud. Gone are the days of dial-up modems, slow DSL lines, and frequent outages. Thanks to fiber optics, LTE/4G, and Wi-Fi, we’re now blessed with super-fast, highly reliable internet from almost anywhere on the planet, and can therefore connect to cloud systems from any device, anywhere we may be.
Trust
A decade ago, it was the norm to have your business’ data and systems on servers that you owned and could touch. In the early days of the cloud, business owners were hesitant to relinquish their systems to a cloud provider and have the data live outside their office’s four walls. Over time, however, the cloud has proven to be more functional and stable than most on-premise IT systems, especially when there is an outage that affects a company’s office (such as a fire, flood, or power loss) and their cloud systems stay online. The cloud has earned the trust of businesses.
Cost
When you take into consideration the true cost of doing something in-house, including hardware, software, support, upgrades, and outages, nine times out of ten, there are cloud options that have a lower TCO (total cost of ownership).
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