In Australia’s digital age, cloud computing is making its way as a life changing force, changing how businesses reserve, process and utilize data. As companies are shifting towards cloud computing, the whole scenario of automation is developing and advancing into something much more beneficial for the businesses. This has encouraged more efficiency and flexibility allowing businesses to deal with market demands faster which has been highly beneficial for businesses. In a country like Australia, cloud computing can do wonders for businesses. In this blog post, we will be discussing how cloud computing can benefit the Australian market, discuss drawbacks and what the cloud computing future holds.
Cloud Computing
In simpler words, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the internet with no direct management by users. It basically allows clients to rent these computing resources instead of buying, owning and maintaining physical data centers and servers. It is based on a network of remote data centers, servers and storage systems that are owned and operated by cloud service providers. It is the cloud service provider’s duty to deal with the storage capacity, security and computing power demanded for maintaining all the data sent by the users to the cloud.
Adoption of Cloud Computing in Australia
In Australia, cloud computing has been evolving and making its way across various sectors and industries due to its multiple number of advantages like scalability, collaboration, cost reductions, mobility, advanced security, flexibility, disaster recovery and automatic software updates. Small and medium sized companies have adopted cloud computing services to compete more effectively with larger companies.
Benefits of Cloud Computing in Australia
- Scalability: Cloud computing gives your business more scalability in comparison with other traditional static solutions. You can scale resources and meet business demands quickly without having to invest in physical infrastructure, this way businesses do not have to worry about paying for the infrastructure required to support the highest load levels. It instantly reduces the risks related to in house operation issues.
- Cost Reductions or Savings: Efficiency and cost reduction is another benefit since companies are now hassle free and do not have to worry about spending large sums on buying and maintaining equipment. No money has to be invested in hardware, facilities and utilities. You do not even need to hire a whole IT department to manage the cloud data center operations, instead you can benefit from the skills of your cloud provider’s staff; thus results into cost reductions. Also, the cloud model you choose; you will only be paying for that, since you will be shifting from a capital expenditure to pay as you go model.
- Flexibility: It promotes flexibility since the remote access to data and software promotes a flexible work arrangement which allows the employees to work from anywhere. Businesses benefit a lot from the high levels of flexibility of cloud computing since it allows them to scale up or down their enterprise without having to invest capital.
- Enhanced Data Security: In today’s world, security is a major concern for every business, cloud computing offers many security features automatic maintenance and centralized management that makes sure that data is securely stored and handled. With the use of cloud computing, businesses can advantage from the security measures taken by the cloud service providers. According to RapidScale, 94% of businesses that shifted to cloud computing have stated that their security enhanced in a great way.
- High Speed: Cloud computing gives you the ability to spin up new cloud computing instances and retire them in seconds; which has allowed companies to easily and quickly test new ideas and applications without onsite hardware limitations – and that too much quicker!
Drawbacks and Concerns
- Downtime: One of the major drawbacks of cloud computing. If a customer goes through an outage he can end up losing access to the company’s data and applications. Cloud outages can be caused by various things such as hardware failures, software glitches and human errors. Most businesses have used safeguards to minimize the chances of these outages, but they can still occur.
- Data Security and Privacy: The first thing that should be done by Australian businesses is address concerns about their data security and privacy when shifting to cloud computing. Data breaches are very common since these cloud based systems store a large amount of data in a central location, they can attract hackers. If a hacker successfully hacks into the system, then he can easily access a large amount of sensitive data.
- Limited Control: You have limited control when dealing with cloud computing, once you move your data from one server to another; you have no control over what is to happen after the data leaves the server.
- Cost: Although cloud computing encourages cost reductions and savings for businesses by letting small businesses have access to high quality data services without spending high sums of money, it can still become costly for businesses if used for small scale projects or short term projects. Users can be on the hook for 18 more months than required, which is not easy on the pocket if the demand for data storage is limited to 6 months whereas the vendor is offering 2 years minimum.
Future Scope of Cloud Computing in Australia
In spite of the challenges and concerns, cloud computing has been predicted to have a high scope in Australia in the coming times. You are expected to see cloud computing growing massively in Australia; both in popularity and security. As reported, Australia is expected to invest over $14 billion in cloud computing by 2025; tipped to grow by 12.5%. Regulatory support from the Australian government and a constantly developing cloud computing system surely shows us a promising future. As cloud computing continues to grows, Australia is ready to enjoy the benefits of improved accessibility and service delivery in their companies in the future.
