In most of our routine lives as consumers, it’s more cost-effective to own than rent. The decision to rent is often more about the availability of funds than what’s ultimately the lowest cost.
The business world turns that perception on its head, at least when it comes to information technology and the cloud. The cloud’s subscription-based model of purchasing IT services rather than owning IT solutions outright has many financial benefits for business.
1. Expenditures match to needs
With the cloud, it’s possible to purchase the exact level of computing technology you need. There’s no need to purchase spare capacity or a more powerful CPU because you forecast a need for it six months in the future. With cloud, you can pay for systems offering exactly the capability you need. Higher-powered infrastructure is immediately available if you experience growth, without a lengthy purchasing and provisioning process. Should you experience a reduction in demand or decide to shut down a platform, you can easily scale back or turn off the infrastructure, immediately reducing your spending.
2. Flexible spending options
Cloud providers offer several options that make using cloud resources even more cost-effective. They offer reserved instances, which provide lower costs for a committed level of usage. Alternatively, if you have flexibility, you can save with spot instances, where the provider sells available, unused capacity. Some vendors may also offer volume discounts, with lower per-unit costs when you use more capacity.
3. Lower electric bills
When you think of your IT costs, it’s important to remember there are other costs besides those of the devices, their support contracts, and your technology employees. All these devices run on electricity, so using cloud means lower electric bills.
4. Smaller IT teams
Technology staff are among the most expensive employees you have. Their high cost is justified by their specialized skills and knowledge, but cloud gives you access to support staff without paying their full salary and benefits.
5. Easier money management
When buying infrastructure means buying infrastructure, there are large, upfront capital expenditures. Paying for IT as you use it means you don’t need large sums of cash to cover your technology expenses, and it frees up that money for other investments in the business. Subscription-based software may also be less expensive than software licenses, again reducing the cash you need for current IT expenses.
6. A secondary site is there when you need it
Expensive as your primary data center may be, at least it’s working for you every day. When you have a physical backup data center, you’re paying for a redundant set of resources that you hope never to use. When your disaster recovery site is in the cloud, it’s there when you need it, and you have minimal costs unless you invoke your recovery plan and start processing on those servers.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud provides numerous options that allow you to design affordable cloud infrastructure that meets your business’s technical and financial needs. Contact VAST IT Services to learn more about how to spend wisely by using Amazon Web Services as your cloud provider.
