Over the last decade, many organisations have transitioned from on-premises data centers to cloud computing strategies, and for good reason. Where on-premises data management can be rigid and expensive, the cloud offers businesses resilience, scalability and cost savings.
On-Premises vs. Cloud Computing
With on-premises data management, all of your organisation’s data is stored on physical servers that live in your building. This strategy can take up a lot of space and often doesn’t provide the flexibility and scalability necessary for rapid business growth. The costs of highly resilient electricity, cooling and communications capabilities must also be considered.
Cloud computing is a multi-dimensional data management model, where the infrastructure, platform and application services necessary to store and use your data are scalable based on your demand. Cloud computing providers also offer highly available and redundant solutions in secure facilities.
There are three cloud models to choose from: public cloud, private cloud, or a hybrid of the two.
Public Cloud
With a public cloud, your data is housed within a global framework of enterprise-class data centers. These are typically multi-tenant, using a shared environment where all users share the underlying physical hardware, storage, networking and communication backbone. While the environment may be shared, each customer’s data is kept separate and secure, avoiding any data security concerns.
Benefits of Public Cloud
- Reduced need for hardware refreshes – Shift large capital expenses to lower operational expenses and eliminate the effort of keeping up with the latest technical requirements and upgrade procedures.
- Cost savings – Reduce operating costs while allowing for greater on-demand availability. Patching and maintenance activities are also greatly reduced and shifted to the provider.
- Increased availability and performance – Benefit from a global footprint, higher data resilience, auto scaling for compute and proximity to the nearest endpoint to reduce latency.
- Innovation – Accelerate innovation with readily-available cloud services and pre-integrated capabilities.
Private Cloud
Private clouds offer the power and capacity of a public cloud with the security, control and scalability of a private, dedicated environment. This model is useful for ensuring regulatory compliance, protecting confidential information and managing analytical jobs that require a significant number of resources that cannot be interrupted by other transactions requiring similar compute resources.
Benefits of Private Cloud
- Higher level of control – Control the amount of system processes accessing the environment at any given time.
- Increased scalability – Grow your applications and data storage capacity as your business evolves.
- Greater flexibility – Use virtualisation to generate resource pools, enabling responsiveness to your business needs.
- Customisation – Receive a highly secure, scalable and customised approach that considers unique platform needs.
- Reduced overhead expenses – Receive a predictable cost structure and lower capital expenditure outlay, lowering operating costs and increasing on-demand availability.
Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud models employ a combination of on-premises resources and public and private cloud resources. Businesses that use a hybrid model can tailor hosting to meet their business needs without sacrificing cost savings for compliance and performance.
Benefits of Hybrid Cloud
- Greater flexibility – Move workloads and IT function effortlessly between public and private clouds.
- Cost saving – Seamlessly connect premises-based systems to cloud systems, driving significant time and cost savings.
- Best of all worlds – Continue to use your existing on-premises resources while adopting the benefits of the cloud.
- Resource utilisation – Maximise your internal IT team and allocate resources accordingly, account for flexibility, scalability and performance.
Cloud Computing for Supply Chain
Cloud computing provides significant value in supply chain planning and execution. Modern supply chain execution systems like WMS, TMS and LMS, for example, are built on cloud-based platforms, enabling quicker and easier deployment. This is also the case for ERPs like Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Overall, cloud computing in the supply chain provides clear business benefits, like:
- Scalability
- Robust functionality
- Lower total cost of ownership
- Reduced IT costs
- Globalisation
- Competitive advantage
Hidden Treasures of Advanced Warehousing
Make the most of Microsoft Dynamics 365’s Advanced Warehousing module and gain insight into the hidden treasures to unlock value.
Experience the Benefits of Cloud Computing
Increased adoption of cloud computing within supply chain and enterprise applications will result in robust solutions with lower total cost of ownership that are scalable, resilient and support rapidly changing business conditions.
If you are considering a solution implementation or upgrade, it may be beneficial to take a closer look at cloud computing. enVista’s IT managed services team can optimise your infrastructure with managed cloud and data center services that take the burden off your IT team and give you scalable, secure and cost-efficient access to your organisation’s data.
