Why the Cloud?

More and more companies are opting for the cloud. But what advantages does it offer and what speaks for a change?

One of the main arguments for moving to the cloud is the cost issue. Large cost centres such as electricity consumption, procurement or maintenance and operation of IT infrastructures can be minimised.

With the so-called hyperscaler clouds from Google, Amazon and Co., far lower hosting prices can be offered than with smaller competitors thanks to economies of scale. This also applies to issues such as security and availability.

However, there are factors such as legal requirements for data residency or latency times for data interfaces that make the use of data centres outside of Switzerland difficult, if not impossible. For example, with complex IoT or Industry X.0 applications, high latency times can stand in the way of stable and fast operation. High latency times occur, for example, when external software components communicate with the cloud over long distances or the application runs across several data centres. By reducing the physical distance between data centres, the risk of high latency times can be significantly reduced. This is why the market share of local providers is also steadily increasing and more and more large cloud hosting providers are expanding their computing network to include the Swiss location.

This development makes the switch to the cloud even more attractive for many companies.

However, not all companies are willing to operate their application in a public cloud. For example, because this is associated with increased risks in the management of confidential data. The hybrid cloud addresses this problem. In a hybrid cloud, only certain parts of the application are operated on a public cloud, all remaining components are positioned in the private cloud or in the company’s own data centre.

Ultimately, the question of whether a switch to the cloud makes sense for a company must be answered based on many factors. In-house IT infrastructure is becoming increasingly inefficient and therefore more expensive. The cost of operating your own data centre is many times higher than relying on computing power from the cloud. Not least because you need to have a large amount of expertise in the company, which is not necessary when using the cloud.

The flexibility gained through the cloud also enables companies to drive innovation. On the downside, risk aspects and latency times are possible obstacles to the adaptation of the cloud.

Given the complex issues, it is worthwhile to obtain expert opinions for the specific company situation. With many years of experience in the field of cloud, soxes supports companies in the decision-making and implementation process of cloud applications.