Building your Business: How the private cloud can help your organisation to grow

Understanding the clouds: Private, Public and Hybrid

Perhaps the best way to understand the benefits the private cloud can bring to your business is to compare it to the other types of clouds the digital world has to offer: public, and hybrid. A public cloud is the most instantly recognisable type of cloud and is best known as a ‘software as a service’ application that’s delivered by a third-party. A public cloud can be accessed by a wider range of users and has a flexible infrastructure that can accommodate a scalable number of users.

In comparison, the private cloud is a service delivered to a specific client only, giving the users of the private cloud more security, privacy and overall control. While the flexibility of this infrastructure is very similar to the public cloud, the entirety of the data within the private cloud is protected behind a firewall, leaving far less room for error, and maintaining a higher level of security control.

Finally, the hybrid cloud is exactly as it sounds – a combination of the features of the public and private cloud. There can be different interpretations of the way these features work together, but the adaptability and flexibility it can bring to your business are guaranteed.

Shaking up your infrastructure: Productivity and flexibility

By virtualising your servers through a private cloud, your business automatically gains an opportunity to change the way you navigate your day to day, as well as the way you plan for your future goals. The private cloud offers ultimate flexibility, allowing you to customise your infrastructure’s environment as and when you need it to perform differently. This also means that your data can be accessed more easily than when using traditional servers, making your normal working day more efficient, and ensuring your team’s productivity is at its highest.

Most importantly for growing businesses, the private cloud ensures scalability on an immense scale. Rather than enabling a long process of adding more users, leading to more data storage, the nature of the private cloud’s infrastructure means that your resources can be scaled up as and when you need them, allowing your servers to grow almost instantaneously. The private cloud ultimately gives you the tools you need to stay ahead in a business world that increasingly relies on data transfers, processes and storage.

Increased security: The certainty your data is protected

It’s now estimated that every minute, 200 million messages are shared worldwide – and that’s only via email, without including other applications or sharing sites. The amount of data your business produces each day makes you vulnerable to cyber attackers who will attempt to use your clients’ information to their advantage, so it’s crucial that your private cloud or data storage solution has watertight security measures in place to prevent the worst from happening. As well as hosting your server behind a military-grade secure firewall, the private cloud gives you control over who is accessing your data each day. This ultimately offers you two-fold protection from potential cyber threats; your private cloud firewall is hosted within an infallible data centre, and is configured using the highest levels of physical and digital security. By giving you full control over who is viewing your data, who has access to it and how much of it is hidden behind your firewall, the private cloud allows you to fully customise your online security environment to best align with your business’s needs. Read more about strategising your security here.

Expanding your assets: The ultimate cost efficiency

Whatever stage of growth your business is at, keeping the costs of your organisation down is always going to be a priority. Because of its inherent scalability, the private cloud is one of the most cost-effective data storage solutions available to the business market. Rather than relying on traditional data servers that are always at risk of malfunction, or expensive physical infrastructure that can be hard to maintain, the private cloud manages itself, saving you costs in the long run.

Don’t let uncertainty hold your business back. At CIS, your private cloud is hosted with the utmost security, leaving you to enjoy the benefits of a flexible infrastructure while we make sure your data remains safe. Contact us for cloud- based solutions that keep your business one step ahead of the game.