Cloud Computing Benefits and Uses | Parallels Explains

Not everyone can buy their extensive computer system resources like servers, storage, databases, networking solutions, and software solutions. To deal with this problem, cloud computing was introduced.

In simple terms, cloud computing delivers these system resources over the internet. You don’t have to buy, administer, and maintain these computer resources, as someone else does it for you. You can just use the desired amount of these resources, pay for them, and increase the number of resources as needed.

Why adopt cloud computing?

The benefits of cloud computing are unparalleled.

Cost savings
Adopting cloud computing means reducing the upfront costs associated with buying software and hardware, setting it up, managing the setup, and employing IT experts to manage the infrastructure. Moreover, the pay-as-you-go model means you only pay for the services you have procured. As such, there is no wastage of resources.

Scalability
Cloud computing services are scalable on-demand, which means you can provision vast amounts of computing resources in minutes. For startups, cloud computing can accelerate IT deployments that suit their needs to allow them to focus on expanding their businesses. Cloud computing can also enhance website speed while minimizing downtime. This gives businesses flexibility and efficiency that accommodates increased requirements at optimum performance.

Productivity
With cloud computing, IT admins do not need to bother about software patches or hardware setup. They can instead focus on other essential business tasks. Besides, cloud computing accelerates collaboration in an organization. Employees can securely view and share data across many end-devices on the cloud platform—this goes further to improve productivity.

Automatic software updates and upgrades
Virtually all cloud providers regularly update hypervisors and other applications—including security updates—in their data centers. This frees up money and time that an organization would otherwise spend on-premises. This ensures improved performance because of reduced network latency.

Reliability
Cloud computing ensures data backup and business continuity. By ensuring the continuous availability of data, cloud computing enhances reliability when compared to on-premises solutions.

Performance
A single on-premises data center, in most cases, cannot compete with cloud-based services in terms of throughput, security, and efficiency. This is because you get most services on-demand. This means you can easily have vast amounts of computing resources within a short time, with great flexibility. Similarly, when you host different platforms, software, and storage resources remotely, you free up computational power and memory on your organization’s computers. This greatly enhances the performance of your workstations.

Flexible workplace practices
Cloud-based services provide the flexibility employees need in their work practices. By providing always-on services, employees can access data from home, via commutation to and from work, and on holiday provided they have an internet connection. Besides, off-premise employees who need to access their apps and files can always connect to the cloud office, quickly and easily.

Insights
Most cloud storage solutions have integrated analytics that can help organizations get an overall big picture view of their data. An organization can use these analytics to unearth hidden insights from their cloud data. By leveraging inbuilt cloud-based analytics, organizations can increase efficiency and achieve a competitive advantage.

What are the problems with shifting to the cloud?

Cloud computing surely has its benefits, but a complete lift–and–shift to the cloud is difficult because of the following reasons:

Companies might have problems with migrating their entire existing legacy IT systems to the cloud.
If companies want to leverage the benefits of different cloud deployments, shifting to the cloud becomes a complex affair in the absence of a solution that can handle multi-cloud deployments.
Virtualization deployment and migration are complex in cloud computing.
Security is still a concern, as companies need a solution well–equipped with security features to mitigate data security risks in the cloud.

How Parallels RAS helps

Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) helps companies with on-premises, public cloud, hybrid or hyper-converged deployments, making migrating to the cloud easy.

Parallels RAS effectively delivers virtual applications and desktops to different cloud computing services like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This multi-cloud support provides more mobility to organizations. Parallels RAS has a single console for load balancing and scaling between multiple clouds so you don’t have to configure each one separately.

Additionally, Parallels RAS offers flexible cloud deployment models, allowing organizations to build a flexible infrastructure by mixing and matching Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH), hypervisors, hyper-converged systems, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) with any cloud solution. It integrates with automation platforms such as REST API and PowerShell, making cloud management easier.

Parallels RAS also offers brilliant security measures including multifactor authentication (MFA), Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), granular filtering, and client policies that remediate data security risks. It also integrates with single sign-on (SSO) solutions such as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD).

Download your 30-day trial of Parallels RAS to experience the benefits of cloud computing!

References:

Parallels RAS Cloud Deployment Options | https://www.parallels.com/products/ras/use-cases/cloud-deployment-models/#onPremisesDeployment

Cloud Computing | https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cloud-computing.asp

What is cloud computing? | https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-cloud-computing/#benefits

What is cloud computing? Everything you need to know now | https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-cloud-computing/#benefits