THE IMPORTANCE OF CLOUD STORAGE FOR BUSINESS

If you are the Owner, Executive Manager or Information Technology (IT) Director of a company or business (hereinafter referred to as the business), you are probably always wondering how to make the IT system in your business operate effectively, safely and at the most reasonable cost possible; how can you focus more on your core business without having to worry too much about the IT infrastructure system – which plays a very important role in business operations and is indispensable. Let’s find the best solution for these concerns with Cloudbase.

THE NECESSITY OF CLOUD DATA STORAGE FOR BUSINESSES

Why is cloud data storage necessary for your business and can be said to be a very urgent requirement today for Vietnamese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

This challenge comes from the explosion and importance of information in the digital age, which is:

1.  The information explosion leads to the amount of information stored increasing every day.

Have you ever wondered how much information we humans create every second in the world? Taking 2020 as a reference point, here are some statistics to help us visualize:

• Every second, humans create about 1.7 MB of data.
• And every day, we create about 2.5 QB – quintillion bytes (1 QB is equivalent to 1 billion GB).  (This amount of data can be contained in 10 million blu-ray discs, if all these discs were stacked, they would have a height equivalent to 4 Eiffel Towers stacked (about 1.2 km)
• At the end of 2020, the total amount of digital information in the world was: 44 ZB – zettabytes (1 ZB is equivalent to one trillion GB)

How much important data does your business generate every day that needs to be stored? And is this data stored securely and available to you whenever you want?

2.  Requirements from digital transformation

Surely you have heard the phrase: “Digital transformation or death” many times recently from many people, maybe even from the head of government. This shows that digital transformation is mandatory for the survival and development of your business. When converting important information from paper records, documents, work processes, etc. into digital information, the amount of information that needs to be stored also increases.

How do you tackle this challenge?

3.  The Covid-19 pandemic outbreak has led to a very high demand for working online from home.

During the days of social distancing, you and your employees cannot go to the office to work or handle important tasks at that time. You have no data, no information because you cannot access the server. Or the necessary information is stored in many places, held by many people. There are a series of other “painful” problems that you have experienced during this pandemic, due to the limitations of your own IT infrastructure system.

Do you have any way to completely overcome these limitations?

4.  Cost

If you are planning to build your own data storage system for your new business or you have a previously created storage system. You will probably encounter the following unavoidable problems:

–  Large and wasteful initial investment costs:  you will have to buy and do a lot of things to build your own storage system: from hardware to software, server room, electrical system, cooling system… You also have to spend more money than your current needs to reserve for the amount of data that will be stored later. It also takes a long time to put the system into operation, the cost of paying for this “time” is sometimes greater than ever.

–  Operation and maintenance costs : Server rooms operate 24/7, which will cost you a significant amount of electricity each month. You also need to pay 1 to 2 employees to monitor and maintain the server system to operate stably.

In addition, you also need to set aside some money each year to buy replacement parts and equipment for damage or upgrades during operation.

5.  Risks from current storage systems

Outdated system

If you have invested in your own server-storage system a few years ago, you will have to use it until the investment cost is fully depreciated. But information technology is an industry that develops every day and you will not have the opportunity to use these new technologies. Besides, the later developed applications are often based on new hardware technologies, so in some cases, your server-storage system will not be able to run these applications. This will greatly affect the efficiency of your business operations.

Data loss and service interruption

All storage hardware has a lifespan and you need to migrate data from the old device to the new device after a certain period of time. With a non-cloud storage system, data migration is risky and there is a high risk of losing some or all of your data. You can imagine how serious this problem is for your business.

Data backup is also an issue that you need to perform periodically every day, every week or every month… Does your current system ensure this backup so that you can restore your latest data in the fastest time when the system has a problem?

Do you worry every time you move your office and transfer your server system from one place to another? And how long does it take to get your storage system back up and running?

Too much dependence on individuals (IT infrastructure staff)

How would you compare having a partner, a hosting company, responsible for providing services to serve your business’s hosting needs versus hiring one or more IT infrastructure staff to build and maintain your own hosting system? How is the handover between old and new employees handled? Or would you never dare to let your IT infrastructure staff go?

These are the challenges you will face if your business’s current data storage system is not cloud data storage. However, you do not need to worry too much about the above problems, you just need to be determined to change the way you are storing and transfer your current data storage to cloud storage. The most important thing you should care about is choosing a reputable cloud storage service provider.

WHAT IS CLOUD STORAGE AND ITS BENEFITS

To know why cloud data storage can help you solve the problems that exist in the current storage system. Let’s understand some of the following contents with Cloudbase:

What is cloud storage?

Cloud storage is a cloud computing model where your data is stored on the Internet through a cloud computing service provider – who manages and operates the data storage service.

The service provides storage capacity and cost that matches your usage needs at any given time, while eliminating the need to invest in and manage your own data storage infrastructure.

Giving you flexible options, instant scalability – upgradeability and high stability – security with data access “anytime, anywhere”.

How does cloud storage work?

Just like when storing on your own server system, cloud storage also uses servers to store data, the difference is that these servers are located in standard data centers in many places around the world and are owned, operated and managed by storage service providers. Most of these servers are created from virtualization technology on physical servers.

Storage space is provided to you via the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. As your storage needs increase, you simply pay for the additional space immediately. The resources available from cloud storage providers are limitless.

Through the internet, or a private network, you can easily access your stored data via the website, through applications for mobile devices.

Depending on your business needs and size, you can store data in different locations around the world.

Benefits of cloud storage

1.  Reduce costs

With cloud storage, you don’t need to buy hardware, invest in spare parts in advance, or set aside a “reserve fee” for future expenses.

You also do not need to spend additional costs such as monthly maintenance costs, costs of hiring staff to monitor, operate, and maintain your own server system.

2.  Fast and effective implementation time

You will have the storage system right when you need it for your operations without having to wait for anything.

3.  Focus on improving business efficiency

Your IT department focuses solely on solving problems related to complex applications that directly serve your business performance without having to worry about managing storage systems.

4.  Centralized information management

When storing in the cloud – cloud data storage, you have also centralized all information in one place, helping you to perform powerful information management tasks such as decentralization, automatic authorization; locking data to support compliance and security requirements.

Your employees will coordinate work better and be more efficient when information is centralized together in one place.

5.  Flexible and fast scalability

With cloud storage, you can expand your storage capacity as much as you want. This expansion can be unlimited and you get the extra capacity you need instantly.

6.  Helps keep business operations uninterrupted

Cloud storage helps your business operate continuously, even in the event of natural disasters, wars… in the area where you operate.

This also gives you, your employees and customers access to data anytime, anywhere.

Despite the obvious benefits, cloud storage also has its drawbacks, especially if you choose an unreliable provider. The drawbacks that you may have to consider are: Security and regulatory compliance, data control, and data access latency.

However, the reality today shows that many businesses choose cloud storage and can overcome the limitations by choosing a reputable provider and choosing the right storage form for their business operations.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT CLOUD STORAGE MODEL

If based on the cloud deployment model, there will be the following models:

1.  Private Cloud (Private Cloud Storage Model):

You invest and deploy the entire IT infrastructure yourself. Usually the data center will be located at the business itself (sometimes rented elsewhere) and located in a private network.

You have full control, operation and maintenance of your own system.

This model requires a team of staff who are very knowledgeable about IT.

Model suitable for: Governments, financial institutions, medium to large sized enterprises that want to tightly control information.

2.  Public Cloud (Public Cloud Storage Model):

In this model, you will rent cloud storage services from service providers through the Internet environment.

You can access anytime, anywhere via web browser, mobile applications.

The model offers flexible storage usage according to your needs: “pay as you go” with rapid expansion.

Suitable for: most small and medium enterprises, Start-up companies, not requiring too much in terms of information control.

3.  Hybrid Cloud (Hybrid Cloud Storage Model):

If you choose this model, you will combine Private Cloud and Public Cloud to be able to take advantage of both Private Cloud and Public Cloud models, which is the control of Private Cloud combined with the flexibility and reasonable cost of Public Cloud.

Data and applications can move between Private Cloud and Public Cloud

Suitable for: Most organizations and most used choice.

So, consider and evaluate the business characteristics of your enterprise and the level of information you want to control to choose the appropriate cloud storage model.

Through this article, we at Cloudbase hope to help you understand and choose the most suitable storage model for your business, based on the business characteristics of the business and the level of information you want to control.