You may have heard the word “Cloud Computing,” but you could not understand it and didn’t know its role in companies’ digital transformation. This guide is here to help you understand the advantages of cloud computing for remote workers & freelancers.
Not so long ago, companies had to create their server and maintain their environment to host and run applications on their premises. Companies would have to hire staff to solve any encountered problem. But in cloud computing, the case is different. It allows you to use various services from a network cloud provided by a service provider. You can access all the services via a web browser. You will only need to have a network connection and a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
Cloud Users Are The Winners
The COVID-19 pandemic brought incredible changes to people’s lives, daily activities, and rules, and the same thing happened with businesses. Many businesses have changed their IT infrastructure. You can call it a necessity rather than a strategy that many firms have come out of the traditional office environment and opted for the new remote working world.
We can predict from the surveys conducted by credible firms that cloud services would become more of a priority by 2021. Gartner conducted a study in which 317 Chief Financial Officers and financial leaders participated, revealed that 74% of CFOs would shift at least 5% of their on-site workforce to permanently remote positions post-Covid19. Besides that, 48% of respondents are willing to change the status of at least 10% of employees to a remote workforce.
This shift can only be occurred by cloud computing because it enables the remote workforce to work from any location and access the required information or data center. Cloud computing enhances team collaboration while juggling multiple projects for different clients.
Benefits of Cloud Computing For Remote Workers
The increase in cloud computing use for remote working has raised many worker’s concerns, and most of them are related to infrastructure, security, availability, etc. Here we are going to discuss all those questions you might have in your mind regarding the advantages of cloud computing.
Accessibility Standards of Cloud Computing
What difference does cloud computing make concerning accessibility? In the traditional systems, companies had to make their system offline while maintaining the data center. The employees would not be able to access the system. While in contrast, cloud computing enables remote employees to access the system anytime from anywhere.
The administrator can grant roles and permissions to the employees to access the information according to their position and responsibilities. In cloud services, employees have their data on fingertips. They can access and make changes to it no matter where they are, either roaming around the road or working from home.
Cost-Effectiveness
It is one of the main advantages of cloud computing. Cloud computing provides an on-demand service. It means you only pay for what you use. If you look at it from a business perspective, it can be a game-changer. Companies can control their resource usage and avoid wasting money on irrelevant services they usually don’t utilize.
There are several ways by which you can optimize your organization’s cloud spending.
Remove idle resources: Normally, we use a service for a while, then forget it. But if you are on the cloud, you must look for the unused and idle resources and quickly de-activate them. You won’t be charged for that at the end of the month.
Prioritize the services: The administrator should prioritize the services needed in the future or currently in use. By doing so, the company can optimize its budget and reduce unnecessary costs.
Purchasing Reserved Instances in Advance: You must know that if you are buying AWS reserved instances or Azure Reserve VM Instances in advance, you can reduce Azure costs by committing to a one- or three-year term for a virtual machine, in exchange for a discount of up to 72% compared to pay-as-you-go.
Strong Cloud Security
The sudden rise in cloud computing adaptation by large enterprises created concerns regarding the cloud network’s security. The issues related to the cloud’s protection were different and could not be tackled with the traditional approach. That’s why enhanced cloud security is introduced, which includes policies, controls, procedures, and other technologies that work together to protect your cloud network from any external threat.
Cloud security offers many benefits, which includes:
Less Expensive: You don’t need to buy hardware or something else if you’re utilizing cloud security. You have to contact your service provider and opt for a customized security infrastructure that meets your requirements. You don’t need to hire extra staff; cloud security offers 24/7 protection with no human intervention.
Centralized Security: Businesses using cloud networks comprise many digital devices such as laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc. So it becomes difficult to secure each entity separately. That’s why centralized security protection was introduced. By doing so, service providers can manage all the endpoints centrally and can improve web filtering. Another benefit of Centralized protection is that a disaster recovery plan can also be implemented quickly.
Reliability: Â Once the right cloud security measures are taken, users can safely access the data without hesitation. Cloud security offers all the functionalities of traditional IT security. If you felt that the current cloud network service provider has no experience providing service, you can easily switch to another.
Scalable Cloud Network and its benefits
Every scalable system can increase or decrease resources and functionalities according to the user’s needs. Cloud computing offers a high-level scalable infrastructure. The administrator can quickly increase the resources whenever the load on the system increases and can quickly decrease the number of resources in the same manner. You don’t need to add more CPUs or servers in the data center to improve the system’s performance and efficiency.
How To Choose The Best Cloud Service Provider?
When you determine which cloud provider you will go for, you must evaluate all the options that other providers offer and look at their scalability infrastructure.
You must understand what your security goals are and what security measures each provider offers to you. You must understand what security features they provide free out-of-the-box for each vendor and the paid ones. Security is the top concern in the cloud, so you must spend most of your attention and evaluate each party carefully.
When choosing a provider, you should also consider Cloud Service Level Agreements (Cloud SLA) and establish a clear contractual relationship between a cloud service customer and cloud service provider.
Support is also an essential factor that requires careful consideration. You should get any help if you face any uncertain situation while using any cloud network. Some providers only provide chat or call center support, but what if it’s not feasible for you. That’s why you should look at their customer support as well before you choose any cloud provider.
Cloud Computing Tools For Freelancers
It is a fact that Cloud Computing software played a vital role and responsible for propelling the growth of the freelance industry. Traditional workers of specialists of many professions are being replaced by freelancers who work from across the world, and it is all due to cloud computing.
Cloud computing tools help freelancers work remotely and provide a medium to connect with customers and other freelancers worldwide. Many apps have been designed, such as Skype and Uberconference on cloud computing, enabling freelancers to communicate with their customers via chat, audio, or video channels.
Freelancers can share documents and other materials through cloud-based innovations such as Dropbox, Slack, Google Docs, etc. They can share documents related to projects they’re currently working on. Cloud payment sites have been designed to make efficient and highly secure e-payment systems. With these platforms, freelancers can send or receive payments throughout the world by paying just a small transaction fee. So we can say cloud computing has changed the whole concept and definition of work.
Conclusion
Many businesses have accelerated their adoption of cloud computing, and this all due to the paradigm shift brought by COVID-19. Today, almost all firms are using the cloud to keep their business running. The day is not far when the cloud will widespread adopted, and all the security and privacy issues will be handled. Nobody knows what challenges face us next, but businesses that embrace the flexibility of cloud computing will be the future winners.
