We live in a digital age where every transaction is recorded and becomes instantly available for analytics. Among a multitude of metrics, businesses can track what customers are buying, when they’re making purchases, and how they’re hearing about products and services. We have access to so much information, but many businesses — large and small — don’t utilize the data they collect from their customers, employees, products and services in a timely manner. Effectively managing data and using it to make informed decisions can help a business outpace its competition.
The good news is that everything you need to capitalize on this digital economy is available as a service. You no longer have to be a large corporation that invests in expensive hardware and software with a large staff of trained IT professionals to manage it. This is where cloud-based computing and solutions can make a real difference because you can select the services you need without the upfront costs.
Cloud-based services come in a variety of forms, the most common of which are private cloud, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS). All four are enabled with the hardware and software needed to run the applications your business depends on every day. The differences between each are who pays for the upfront costs of establishing the services and the ongoing efforts to maintain them.
Private Cloud
A private cloud solution is established in your data center that’s located at your business or colocation facility. With a private cloud solution, you as the business owner purchase and maintain the hardware and software needed to provide the computing resources and applications that your business will use. Along with this upfront and ongoing expense is the need to have trained IT staff to manage these components.
IaaS
IaaS provides the computer and storage servers to replace your on-premise servers and other appliances required to run your software applications. As the business owner, you “rent” the infrastructure from your provider. You’ll still need to administer the operating systems and applications that run on the cloud provider’s hardware and be responsible for system security and other IT-related services, but you will not need to buy and maintain the hardware and software components below the operating system. This is especially helpful if you are space- or capital-constrained.
PaaS
PaaS solutions include the IaaS building blocks along with the operating system and services framework. This allows you to focus on building and utilizing the applications and data needed to run your business. Common PaaS services include mobile application development and deployment, and web application services, such as Microsoft Azure App Service, Salesforce.com Lightning and Amazon Web Services Elastic Beanstalk.
SaaS
SaaS solutions move the cloud provider’s responsibility further up the service stack to include the software and the complete productivity application and specialized software you need to run your business. The primary advantage of a cloud-based SaaS solution is that you can focus on getting the most out of the application and not on maintaining the infrastructure and software. After all, unless your business is running IT systems for other businesses, your efforts should be concentrated on providing your products and services to your customers. Well-known examples of SaaS services include Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce.com, Dropbox, QuickBooks Online, GoToMeeting and Adobe Creative Cloud.
In summary, local businesses have numerous options to access and utilize valuable data that can improve their operations and open doors to new opportunities. Reach out to your technology partner to help you navigate the cloud landscape and identify the best solution for your individual business so you can start leveraging this data.
Kenneth Hensarling is the director of business product management at Hawaiian Telcom. Reach him at kenneth.hensarling@hawaiiantel.com.
