In today's highly competitive world, being a startup can become a great challenge. Startups are rich with ideas, passion for developing products, and an elaborative plan to establish themselves. However, the larger counterparts having abundant IT resources and infrastructure can possibly hinder your survival in the marketplace. This apprehension existed when there were not enough Cloud Computing providers, but this is no longer the case in the present scenario. With Cloud Computing's IaaS or Infrastructure as a Service, startups are now able to compete on a much bigger scale. So, let's determine how Cloud's Infrastructure is offering the due competitive edge to startups.
High Availability
One of Cloud's fundamental benefits over an on-premises solution is a guaranteed uptime exceeding 99%. The reason behind such high levels of availability includes redundant off-grid energy solutions and redundant servers placed at different locations. These servers can be immediately 'called upon' in case a disaster strikes. Cloud Computing also offers advanced monitoring systems to ensure an optimal run of servers. If a business had to achieve such high availability with their existing infrastructure, it would have resulted in heavy investment. For startups, they can easily get high availability for their mission-critical applications without paying extra overheads.
Budget-Friendly Infrastructure
One common issue that every startup incurs is the high cost of the development of in-house IT infrastructures. The cost of IT staffing, setting up premises, hardware, and the necessary redundancy can become a financial liability to startups. Systems for analyzing Big Data, resource-extensive applications, along traffic-burdened websites add up to unwanted financial overheads. However, with Cloud in place, many of the infrastructure-associated costs are directly eliminated. There is absolutely no need for hardware, and much of the software costs are fetched at budget-friendly prices with Cloud infrastructure in place. Additionally, startups also need not pay for any redundant resources that they use. With Cloud, startups get the infrastructure at pocket-friendly costs required to compete with larger businesses.
Faster Time to Market
In today's enterprise scenario, besides the cost of establishing the infrastructure, the speed at which the services are delivered to markets is also important. Companies need to develop their infrastructure quickly to react to changes in the marketplace or even when launching new services. Being there first gives enterprises the upper hand. With Cloud Computing in place, the hardware setup speed can be significantly reduced, making it possible to deploy a complete IT infrastructure that can either replace your existing systems or even function in a hybrid manner. Cloud makes it faster for startups to reduce the building and testing time of the system, thereby allowing them to complete their business-oriented goals much faster. More rapid deployment of Cloud makes startups more agile compared to their larger enterprise counterparts having on-premises solutions.
Cost-Friendly Scalability
Another method by which Cloud hosting provides agility to startups is through its ability to offer hindrance-free scalability. Startups constantly require resources like CPU, RAM, storage, bandwidth, and Cloud can be achieved in near-zero time. It is mainly because the Cloud providers offer all these resources at the time of Cloud deployment. With an in-house IT architecture, businesses had to purchase new servers and get them installed along with configuring the software. This time gap could result in serious business issues.
Besides operational agility, Cloud also offers financial skills through scalability. The end-users of the Cloud operate on a pay-per-consumption basis, allowing them to scale up resources during peak sessions and then scale down later without incurring additional overheads. In-house systems and servers demand the purchase and maintenance of redundant servers for scaling up. The scalability offered by Cloud allows startups to leverage the same capacity as that of their major counterparts, allowing them to get additional benefits on the go without paying extra.
Improved Security
Security is one of the core features that Cloud Computing provides to startups for developing their business. Spending on Cloud security results has increased significantly over the years, attributing to Cloud providers continuously investing in protecting their customer's data. With a large portion of businesses now using the Cloud to address their IT requirements, security developers are increasing their focus on enhancing the services offered to the Cloud industry. Startups that have made a move to Cloud get multi-layered security solutions. Also, with data stored on Cloud, startups don't need to worry about compliances as every Cloud Hosting adheres to industry-defined compliances regulations.
Conclusion:
Cloud has a lot to offer to startups through its unmatched benefits advantages over on-premises solutions. By combining these benefits, Cloud offers enhanced agility, reduced financial burdens allowing them to compete easily with their larger counterparts.
