The true potential

Cloud computing - a story full of misunderstandings

According to a KPMG study, two-thirds of companies primarily use the private cloud. There are signs that the trend could move in the direction of the public cloud, but this is by no means certain. The main reason for this is that many companies have misconceptions about the cloud, which in some cases are holding back a change in technology. Reason enough for FPT Software to name the most common misconceptions and to take up the cudgels for the enormous potential of the cloud.

Pay-as-you-go model

As with any other groundbreaking technology, there were not many use cases for cloud computing in the beginning. Accordingly, it was difficult for outsiders to make a halfway realistic assessment of its potential. In the pay-as-you-go model, users pay for each service they use and benefit from the flexibility of the model. Traditional IT managers often do not have a fixed cost structure that they can plan ahead. In this respect, cloud computing requires them to take a new approach to costing. Unlike on-prem infrastructures, cloud computing services are hosted in the service provider's data center. This leads to a sense of loss of control among some stakeholders, as well as an assumption that data and processes are not secure when using cloud services. Common reservations include, for example, lack of reliability, limited control capabilities, and lack of suitability for enterprise applications.

Global Services

As big-name cloud service providers expand into more and more regions of the world and offer an ever-increasing number of services, many fear the associated climate costs: data centers require a lot of energy, both to provide computing power and storage capacity and to cool all the hardware. In fact, however, cloud providers and data center operators have made massive strides in developing equipment cooling and energy efficiency techniques that reduce environmental impact. Moving data centers that map less latency-critical tasks to geographically favorable locations, such as Sweden, Norway, or even further toward the poles, can also improve energy efficiency.

On-prem vs. managed cloud

Traditional on-prem IT infrastructures cannot help companies handle the dynamics and complexity of the market in almost all industries. Flexibility, scalability, availability, technical timeliness, cost efficiency, reduced administrative overhead and predictability are key advantages of managed cloud services.

For businesses in competition, cloud computing is therefore becoming one of the most important techniques. In addition to the more technical part of the transition to the cloud, companies are well advised to implement a number of measures that relate more to the strategy and culture of the company. 

"In the age of emerging, new technologies, such as AI and ML, that are benefiting businesses, the ability to develop, deploy and test innovative services quickly and reliably is becoming increasingly important," said Jin Nguyen, Cloud Transformation Consultant, DXG Team at FPT-Software Europe. "This requires scalable, extensible and pre-built services, which is basically what only cloud solutions offer."