Before the rise of the digital landscape, businesses traditionally relied on a dedicated IT department and an on-premise model for their technological needs. Although this gave businesses complete control, it also meant a large investment of both time and money to ensure that everything ran smoothly and that the IT professionals were knowledgeable.
Using cloud services means trusting an outside provider, but the benefit to this is that someone else is handling maintenance, upgrades, and any issues. This allows businesses to focus on their products or services, enabling them to become more efficient and productive. There are three major types of cloud services:
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
Infrastructure as a Service
IaaS enables a business to reduce or completely remove their on-premise data centers and off-site recovery locations. Moving stored data and computing power to the cloud means that the providers handles:
- Device failures
- Disaster recovery
- Hardware upgrades
- Maintenance
Because this is the provider's livelihood, they are also committed to business continuity and quality service. They provide the tools and the business only needs a professional or two to use these tools, allowing for a smaller budget but increased innovation.
Platform as a Service
Businesses are unique and often need custom software, either written from scratch or modified from existing vendor software. This is not only expensive, but can also be difficult to upgrade to meet new breakthroughs and customer expectations.
PaaS uses cloud services to give software to a business's programmers, and to send it to people outside the organization who need it. These platforms are updated without interrupting service, and a PaaS vendor provides infrastructure, data security, and their own facilities. Even better, businesses can partner with freelance software developers via their PaaS platform.
Software as a Service
Software developers use cloud services to offer their programs and packages to businesses. While SaaS has fewer options for customization, it does offer unique programs that are specifically designed to do something in a certain way. Businesses buy a subscription or use pay-as-they-go, but these software packages are usually easy to set up and navigate no matter the technological expertise of the person using them.
Businesses looking to keep up with the pace of modern technology need the time and budget to innovate their own services without worrying about how they'll stay online and updated with the latest software. By using cloud services like IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, businesses can improve productivity and efficiency without sacrificing budget or losing important data.