How can you leverage cloud technology in your business? From ‘what’ to ‘how’.
By Isidoro Sánchez, technical director of Numintec.
In 1997 Steve Jobs made the following reflection after his return to Apple: “I don’t need a hard drive on my computer if I can get to the server fast. At that time when we were talking about computers, we got lost with data about gigabytes, megahertz, disks and devices. The cloud allows us to forget all this and talk directly about needs and services, isolating them from the technology that supports them.
It is clear to all of us that our company must be “uploaded” to the cloud or at least take advantage of this technology that is so widely talked about.
“Uploading” the company to the cloud is not just a change in technology, but a change in the way we work and interact internally and with our customers. The advantages of uploading to the cloud are many but the difference is in how we make our company benefit from it.
The first thing we try to do when we want to “upload” our company to the cloud is to replicate exactly what we have. In other words, we move servers and equipment from our infrastructure to the network of a third party, virtualizing our desktops and disks on the Web. In short, the day after being “uploaded” to the cloud everything remains the same.
Before deciding which tools to use, we should consider how we can maximize the benefits of the cloud:
1 – Teamwork and collaboration culture
Let’s make the most of the tools that the network offers us, making the people in the organization really work as a team. An example of this is not sending a document for review but rather sharing, commenting and working on the same document, obtaining a single definitive version quickly.
2 – Disconnect people from their “location”
We can count on any member of our team immediately and wherever you are. Cloud technologies allow us to easily meet on the web, share work and use the same tools.
3 – Untying our services from operating systems and devices
Our company and our employees must always be able to work, wherever they are and whatever device they have. For this reason, it will be very helpful to base work applications on WEB interfaces that allow us to work from a tablet or from an Internet café.
4 – Information available in real time
The information collected by each member of an organization must always be available to the company from anywhere. This information must be secure and it must be possible to immediately remove access from those who no longer need it. The key is that even if there is nothing on the device of any member of the organization you can access everything you need. In short, if someone takes a PC from the company they won’t find anything inside.
Finally, we will know if we are considering a successful migration to the cloud with a very simple test: if we change the computer of any member of our company, it should be able to work immediately without installing anything and without missing anything.
Link to the original article in Spanish.