Moving On-Site Applications to the Cloud

In the past, companies were forced to build and host all of their applications on their servers. This made working on those applications difficult without being on-site and often slowed down their servers for everyone else at the company. Maintaining these closed-circuit servers were expensive and needed constant monitoring. As technology advanced, a better option surfaced: The Cloud. This refers to the Internet servers that millions of databases, software, and applications can run on. Instead of being tied down to one location, these online servers are in places around the world so you can access them wherever you are.

Advantages of Moving Applications to the Cloud

There are a lot of benefits that go with moving software to the Cloud. One, what used to be heavy IT workload can now be automated. Because people can build and update applications on the Cloud, IT does not have to constantly babysit. Instead, adjustments can be made at the click of a button or done automatically. Two, complex acquisitions with very different companies becomes easier. Without being stuck trying to merge different software applications and data by hand, the Cloud can make transitions smoother for both companies.

Although there are many more reasons that we will not dive into here, cloud providers typically utilize a wide variety of security measures to protect its users from threats – most likely much more than one company would invest in on their own. As security threats are ever-changing, this is a nice advantage to better protect your business.

The Downside

While in the long run there are very few disadvantages from keeping your applications on the Cloud, there can be some short-term drawbacks that keep businesses from a leap of faith. The transition process from on-site to on-cloud can be extremely lengthy for your business, especially if you have many large, complex software’s already in place.

You will need to slowly migrate everything onto the Cloud and closely monitor them until your infrastructure has been rebuilt using the new system. This process could take upwards of a year to get everything transitioned over and working properly. Additionally, you will be forced to keep a strong connection online to allow your employees to gain access to your programs once in the Cloud. You should expect a lot of hours spent on testing, retesting, and testing again to ensure the complete functionality of your new Cloud-based programs.

It may seem like quite a few downsides to moving to the Cloud, eventually, it is the right move. You will not be required to spend as much manpower monitoring your in-house servers and applications, and you will be able to use your software’s virtually anywhere in the world. Here at Charter Global, we believe that by utilizing the Cloud, your business can level up and start down the path to even more advances.