In the world of Information Technology, it seems that every few years a new concept comes along that is touted as the next great leap in technology. With reports of remarkable growth (and glowing revenue forecasts), cloud computing seems to have taken a firm hold of the industry. There is now a steady stream of migration from the on-premise model to this cloud-based paradigm, which is seamless for businesses who want a secure and high-performance infrastructure without capital expenditures.

As a growing trend in the IT world, cloud computing offers many benefits, especially to SMBs. Many small and medium-sized businesses are already obtaining huge benefits from SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and other forms of grid computing such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) in the form of high speed and agility, streamlined operations as well as improvement in other areas like customer engagement. But there is much more to cloud computing than that. Here are five reasons why you – should work with a professional IT consulting service provider and plan the move to cloud platform like Microsoft Azure.

Reduced costs

One of the most obvious benefit of cloud computing platform such as Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, is the cost savings. Microsoft Azure can help you to manage IT costs in a way that works best for the business. Businesses save time for implementation because cloud computing becomes functionally faster than an on-prem deployment, not to mention its fast recovery. Operational costs are also reduced,you pay only for what you use, meaning the costs are directly proportional to your usage. However, each scenarios different and require a proper assessment by experienced cloud consultants

Reliability

A professional cloud computing service lets SMEs (and larger enterprises) to build highly scale able and reliable systems. Microsoft Azure uses ready-to-use fail-overs, load balancers and other readily available technologies to ensure that your systems are always up and running. With proper planning and design, cloud computing services allow you to implement highly available and reliable systems without huge capital spending.

Integration with On-Premises Infrastructure

If your business is an enterprise user of Microsoft technologies, you can use hybrid cloud utilizing your on-premise servers, as well as leveraging the Azure advantage. With Microsoft Azure, customer can create a consistent experience across your hybrid cloud using comprehensive Azure cloud capabilities. Hybrid cloud allows companies to scale computing resources without massive capital expenditures to handle short- and long-term demands.

Automation

Automation enables you to automate tasks which would typically bog down and occupy IT and service desk staffs time. With cloud computing, you do not need to have a team to handle day to day tasks like system updates, back-ups etc. Automation takes care of these intricate tasks and by utilizing Cloud Automation, you can reduce errors and boost efficiency, which allows to lower your operational costs.

Security & Compliance

IT security is top of mind for all organizations these days managing workloads on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid.Cloud platforms provide features to protect workloads with built-in controls and services. Azure Security Center provides unified security management by identifying and fixing issues and providing visibility into threats or attacks quickly to remediate. Microsoft Azure maintains comprehensive compliance portfolio in the industry which is grouped into several segments including globally applicable, Industry specific, region or country specific to cover all customer specific scenarios.

There has never been a better time to implement cloud infrastructure into your business. A professional service provider of IT consulting in Toronto can help you ensure that your IT systems are ready to meet the cloud computing needs of your growing organization.