cloud computing. It is a scalable hardware Cloud computing is a scalable hardware, and it means that you pay for what you use. It offers high utilization with smoothing of the inevitable troughs and peaks in the work schedules. You can ditch using a dedicated server and pay for the space that you use. With cloud, your server will be shared with other organization’s computing needs. This will help you to optimize the hardware needs of your data centers and this results in lower operating costs. Cut down on energy costs Switching to cloud is a good idea as it uses less electricity compared to maintaining a dedicated server room. This is one of the best benefits of scalable computing. In fact, it offers better hardware utilization which you will not experience when you use your own data centre. It is important to understand that idle servers waste energy and thus, switching to cloud service provider can be a better option. Streamline your workforce While you analyze your organization’s computing cost, you will find that the single biggest item is the staffing budget. It can take up a lot of your operational budget costs. The budget increases because of experienced IT people which are quite costly. This can literally outweigh the costs of hardware and software. When you shift to cloud, only a small amount of your budget will go to the provider. It is a much smaller amount as compared to setting up an in-house server or Data Center room. It does not mean that you have to downsize your IT department but, you can surely improve the efficiency of your staff by assigning them tasks from other areas of your department. No upfront costs When you choose to run your own servers, you will have to consider upfront costs but, when you shift to cloud computing; financing the capital investment is not your headache. Finance team would love the OPEX model . You might think that even if you run your own server room, it doesn’t matter as the cost of running it is divided throughout the server’s life. However, the money get blocked upfront that otherwise cannot be invested in the business. Instead, cloud computing offers less variability in cost as the business grows and removes a big barrier growth. Less redundancy and more resilience When you run your own servers, you have to invest in redundant hardware, in case something stops working. Also, in extreme cases, you will have to duplicate everything. Also, having spare hardware because, “just in case you might need” it is extremely expensive. Instead, you can switch to cloud and let the computing service provider deal with redundancy requirements. The typical cloud computing services have several locations of their data centers and they usually mirror your data on at least two of these locations. Thus, this is a cheaper way of making your systems more efficient. Conclusion  Cloud computing is a proven and economical mainstream alternative for small business and small offices/home offices. Shifting to cloud will definitely save you a lot of money not only for cloud security but for many other types of workloads relating to data centers. It has immense economic benefits, and it is good for the environment as it saves a lot of energy as well reduced manpower & associated costs. About SNS   Secure Network Solutions (SNS) has been protecting corporates against cyber-attacks for last 20 years. To consult with their cloud security experts reach out at [email protected] or visit website at www.snsin.com