Getting More in the Cloud: Making the Shift from On-Premise to the Cloud

The Cloud revolution is in effect as 85% of businesses worldwide use the Cloud to store data. And if you think COVID-19 has dampened the on-premise to cloud shift, the stats say otherwise:

• 87% of global IT decision-makers agree that COVID-19 will push organizations to accelerate cloud migrations.

• Post-pandemic (within the next five years), IT leaders expect 95% of workloads to be in the Cloud.

• In the first quarter of 2020 (when COVID-19 was in its early stages), cloud spending rose 37% to $29 billion USD.

When revenues are uncertain, many companies in many industries seek ways to reduce operating costs and maximize efficiency. With cloud migration, this happens in a variety of ways.

Get More Security

Protecting critical data and devices from evolving, and more complex threats, is a top priority, which is why many organizations are choosing to utilize the Cloud, as evidenced by the following:

• 83% of IT leaders trust cloud security more than ever.

• 94% of small and medium businesses (SMBs) report experiencing security benefits after migrating to the Cloud.

• 61% of security professionals believe the Cloud is safer than an on-premise environment.

Perhaps most telling is that by 2024, workloads which utilize the Cloud to enhance data protection will experience 60% fewer security incidents when compared to traditional on-premise data centers.

Some risks mitigated by the Cloud include:

• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks: A DDoS attack occurs when cybercriminals send so much malicious traffic to a destination – like a web server – and forces it offline. One DDoS attack knocked out a website for 292 hours (or 12 days) and a small business can lose up to $74,000 per hour of DDoS downtime. The Cloud can protect against DDoS attacks by monitoring and “learning” your normal traffic patterns, and detecting and deleting shady traffic before it ever reaches your data.

• Obsolete Patches: In 2019, 60% of security breaches were due to unpatched vulnerabilities and it took an average of 16 days to patch them once they were discovered. Cloud service providers constantly install patches, while the end user suffers no downtime. With more workers than ever working remotely, cloud patch updates ensure devices are updated with the latest protections.

Get More Scalability

Having the ability to increase or decrease resources as needed is essential to always meeting the demands of your business-critical mobile operations. For example, if you needed to add 1,000 tablets to your healthcare organization, you should be able to do so without straining existing infrastructure.

On-premise servers may lose their ability to adapt to growing workloads after four years. When this happens, the options are to either install new hardware or purchase and deploy a new server, and then repeat the process all over again in approximately four years.

Meanwhile, scalability in the Cloud comes through in a variety of ways:

• Scalable Storage: Approximately 45% of global businesses use the Cloud for big data workloads. Why? Because the Cloud can safely store that data and accommodate more when it becomes generated without incurring the capital expense that comes with investing in additional physical servers.

• Scalable Power: The Cloud allows businesses of all sizes to access additional computing power as needed. This feature is especially beneficial during seasonal spikes in traffic or data flow, such as in the retail sector around the holidays.

• Scalable Versatility: Organizations – especially growing organizations – can use the Cloud to accommodate today’s needs without being tied to legacy equipment or infrastructure. This is true as legal or regulatory requirements change along with the growth of your business and the industry it’s in.

Get More Savings

Since the Cloud is managed by third-party service providers, like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, the total cost of ownership (TCO) is substantially lower when compared to on-premise:

Because there are less TCO elements associated with the Cloud, businesses can save up to 77% vs. on-premise.

It all comes down to capital expenditures (CAPEX) vs. operational expenditures (OPEX). CAPEX costs are for physical assets like an on-premise server or a company car or a building. You must pay for the entire asset, as well as its upkeep, insurance, maintenance and any required personnel. The asset will depreciate over time, but the cost to keep it running does not go down.

OPEX costs are the expenses required to run the day-to-day operations of your business. These are consumable items – such as website hosting, printer paper, electricity or fuel – which are paid for according to usage. With OPEX – and the Cloud – you only pay for what you need.

Thinking long-term, the average TCO for an on-premise solution supporting 100 users over four years is approximately $1.4 million while a cloud-based solution is around $698,000. In short, the TCO for on-premise can be more than double than that of the Cloud.

Get More Productivity

According to a 2020 survey, 25% of global respondents said the average hourly downtime cost of their on-premise servers is between $301,000 USD and $400,000 USD. Meanwhile, the average lifespan of a server is around four years and a four-year old server experiences 3.4 hours of downtime per year.

There are 8,760 hours in a year and 3.4 lost hours equals 99.96% uptime, which seems pretty good. Let’s do some math:

• 3.4 hours of downtime x $400,000 USD per hour = $1,360,000 USD

Can your business afford to lose that much time and money?

Cloud service providers offer 99.99% uptime, which amounts to 8,759.12 uptime hours out of 8,760.

The Cloud drastically reduces the time and costs associated with downtime because of its unique ability to “bounce back” from disaster and restore its infrastructure with minimal interruption to your business-critical mobile operations.

Get More with SOTI MobiControl Cloud

As your fleet of mobile devices increase, SOTI MobiControl Cloud, part of the SOTI ONE Platform, is equipped to keep them productive without compromising cost, security and reliability.

With SOTI MobiControl Cloud, you only pay for the device count. This allows you to reduce your overall infrastructure requirements and eliminate cumbersome maintenance expenses and capital costs. And we’ve partnered with two of the world’s leading cloud service providers (learn more about them here and here) to ensure you get the uptime, reliability and performance your business-critical mobile operations need.

• New to SOTI? Contact us to learn more about SOTI MobiControl Cloud or sign-up for a free 30-day trial.

• Already a SOTI MobiControl Customer? See why you should migrate to SOTI MobiControl Cloud today, and then contact us to get started.