How Can SMEs Control Cloud Scale to Minimise Cost?

In the Cloud Industry Forum’s recent research paper The Transformational Impact of Cloud, there are many positive takeaways when it comes to UK companies’ progress and cloud adoption. 93% of respondents said that the cloud is important to their company’s digital transformation strategy, with 72% considering it either very important or critical. When it came to naming benefits, respondents cited greater business agility (52%), improved scalability (48%) and better business resilience (45%) as their top three advantages. In addition, 96% said the cloud has saved their organisation money, while 61% consider the business more secure thanks to cloud technology.

It’s encouraging that with the global outlook looking more stable, and cloud adoption so widespread, we’re now in a better position to focus more specifically on getting the best out of our cloud infrastructure.

It’s great to see all the advances the cloud has accelerated as Platforms as a Service. However, in many instances, SMEs are cautious of scaling too fast and too much with the cloud, and paying for architecture and infrastructure that isn’t necessary.

So, how do SMEs work to avoid it, and how do you backtrack if you’ve gone too far? How do you define and keep control of your requirements and client service providers? The solution for businesses lies in understanding their cloud requirements upfront and practicing proactive, carefully managed ‘elastic scaling’ with the tools made available by cloud providers.

Understand Your Cloud Requirements

Every company is on a digital journey; the consistent growth of our digital portfolio is the outcome of our commitment to being digital-first and the ongoing shift to global platforms and cloud-based integrated solutions. At Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK, our success has been largely down to truly understanding what our customers need, and helping them to understand their own requirements, as well as those of their clients.

When it comes to the cloud, businesses should start with a good understanding of the volume they are dealing with, as well as how many users they will have. This will help them to determine how much computing power they need, as well as how much storage is required. Are you starting with 10 users interacting with your cloud-based system, or 100?

It’s important to ensure that you scope your requirements for what your organisation needs today but with the potential to scale for future need. A move to cloud needs robust and considered planning. It is advisable not to rush to start your cloud journey but rather to have a clear set of objectives, goals and timelines; it’s also important for the move to be supported and championed not only by the leadership of your business but is also communicated to all colleagues to ensure enthusiasm and buy-in.

Use The Tools At Your Disposal

Cloud usage and storage is not the best-kept secret of cloud providers. On the contrary, cloud providers have made a wide variety of tools available for businesses to monitor and adjust their infrastructures. Companies can, via an easily accessible dashboard, view everything that is going on.

The majority of cloud providers offer reporting and cost analysis tools, as well as cost forecasting tools. These are usually made available via an online portal, where you can see what power and storage you have used to date, the value per unit and – based on your procurement uses – and what your bill will be for the future. These tools will also allow you to set a maximum budget, and alerts that will warn you when you are nearing that threshold. In comparison to monitoring the storage, computing and networking power used by physical servers, cloud-based measurement and monitoring are a breeze.

Larger companies usually have an in-house IT team which is in charge of all of this, while smaller companies may choose to outsource. Regardless of how cloud usage and infrastructure are managed, companies should always have complete transparency and the ability to manage usage in a very hands-on way.

Understanding the Advantages of the Cloud

Once companies have mastered the ability to monitor and scale their cloud usage and cost, they can focus on the new opportunities made available in the cloud. Do you want to add a new service or line of business that requires extra power or storage? With the flexibility of the cloud, this can be done in minutes. The cloud is much more controllable than dealing with physical infrastructure, and the move to cloud-based Platforms as a Service is giving businesses the power of choice in a way many have never experienced before.

By Neil Parsons, Managing Director, Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK

The post How Can SMEs Control Cloud Scale to Minimise Cost? appeared first on Accounting Insight News.