Thursday, 14 May 2015 Blog ehdf

SMEs are Embracing Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has been a buzzword in technology for the last few years and has seen increased adoption recently by both enterprises and SMEs, particularly in Dubai, UAE. It has proven to be an essential tool to reduce IT costs and achieve flexible and scalable IT solutions. For SMEs, cloud is extremely beneficial as they cannot afford to have an IT team on call, or on site 24 hours a day.

Benefits of the Cloud for SMEs

SMEs can utilize cloud infrastructure services without spending much on capital expenditures (CAPEX). Unlike buying hardware with set specifications, cloud offers flexible capacity based buying options that allow the company to pay only for what they need, making it ideal for small to medium businesses.

As cloud providers offer options for scalability, SMEs do not have to worry about extensive infrastructure upgrades in the future. Using cloud, SMEs can grow faster as new infrastructure can be deployed quickly. It allows them to start with what they need and expand as and when required. This makes SMEs nimble, quick and agile, and enables them to conduct business faster and better.

A 2013 European Commission report revealed that organizations adopting cloud could reduce their costs by about 10 – 20%.

Choosing the right Cloud Model — Hosted Private cloud Or Public cloud

It is important for organizations to evaluate both Hosted Private Cloud and Public cloud and see which platform best meets their business requirements.

Hosted Private Cloud is generally preferred by businesses which need to host high performance business applications with security services and scalable compute capacity. It also gives the option to choose between managed and unmanaged variants, where the cloud is fully managed by the services provider in the case of the former option.

On the other hand, Public Cloud is ideal for website hosting and other web applications for SMEs, companies that need to host testing and development workloads and applications that need immediate deployment as servers can be provisioned at the click of a button.

Top tips to choose the right cloud computing company in Dubai, UAE

1. Evaluate the credibility of the service provider

2. Ensure that they follow international best practices for Service management and Information Security Management

3. Check if the service provider has good customer references

4. Ensure that they provide guaranteed level of services and offer SLAs

5. Ensure that they meet the specific needs of the nature and size of your company and business applications to be hosted

6. Check if they offer 24/7/365 support