Cloud Services: How Modern Digital Business Works in the Cloud [5 Reading Tips]

Cloud Services Reading Tips — Source: Pexels/Magda Ehlers

The headline is legendary: »iCloud, You Cloud, We All Cloud« was the title of an article published in The New Yorker in June 2011 – almost exactly a decade ago. Back then, Apple’s iCloud was all over the news – the possibility for private individuals to store their data decentrally in a cloud and no longer on USB sticks, backup DVDs, external hard drives or home servers.

The New Yorker verbalises the product name and uses the headline to emphasise what has happened in IT over the last 15 years, from private individuals to enterprises: I do it, you do it – we all do it! What this refers to? Having data in the cloud.

However, the real question is: what are cloud services and why should every company invest time, money and strategic efforts in them?

Cloud Services: High-Speed Data Exchange Plus Increased Security

The change towards omnipresent cloud computing took place without much fuss. No thunderstorm with a bang, but rather a gradual change in the general weather conditions – or, as the Guardian aptly wrote back in 2013: »The cloud is driving a quiet revolution.«

Let us be honest: Having the only data centre in your own basement? That is so 2010! Excuse: Slow data exchange? That was not even credible in 2011! In autumn 2021, companies predominantly rely on cloud services when it comes to IT services – even in old Europe.

A study conducted by KPMG puts this into figures. According to this study, 82 per cent of companies in Germany with more than 20 employees are already in the cloud. They are now dealing with application scenarios, integration and the transformation to a cloud-based company.

High time to briefly explain the principle. The idea of the cloud is as simple as it is ingenious: Cloud computing involves a wide variety of customers accessing external large-scale data centres, whose existing capacities are used flexibly and cost-effectively. Not only does this allow for highly accurate billing based on time or storage space, but it also minimises data loss, increases security and enables companies to reduce the strain on human and technological resources.

Data in the cloud is encrypted, stored securely and can be accessed at any time, i.e. 24/7, 365 days a year. The cloud does not need holidays. It is not only business processes themselves that benefit from the constant data availability, but also the analyses of those business processes and consequently the business processes of the future: with the help of data in the cloud, intelligent data mining can be carried out in real time. After all, we have learned between 2011 and 2021 – if not before – that data can be used to make better decisions in order to be successful in business.

Cloud Services: IT Strategists at Work

There are many different cloud computing offerings: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are the largest providers.

However, Salesforce, SAP and Adobe, which have been adopting a cloud-only approach for more or less two decades, as well as smaller managed cloud service providers that focus on independence, security and data protection, such as the Cologne-based company Plusserver, also play an important role.

Developing the right IT strategy is of key importance when it comes to deciding which provider makes the most sense. There is hardly any modern software project that can do without the right cloud services strategy. Whether it is private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud or serverless: you need clouds to ensure fair weather in your company.