Computing in the cloud is more important than ever

IT leaders face ever-expanding security, scalability and cost challenges. In many cases, data centers require more capacity and redundancy than they have the ability to provide. Ransomware attacks have accelerated dramatically. Hardware shortages and infrastructure costs have made capital expenditure (CAPEX) – based purchasing economically untenable. Cloud computing and Storage as a Service (STaaS) offer relief and protection from many of these challenges.

IT security is job 1

The recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack has shone a bright spotlight on the security challenges facing IT managers. It was far from an isolated incident, however. According to the FBI, there have been 4000 ransomware attacks every day since 2016. Consulting firm Cyber Security Ventures estimates that the cost of worldwide cybercrime in 2021 will reach $6 trillion – up from $3 trillion in 2015.

Industry analysts Sophos conducted a recent survey that identified the average cost to remediate a ransomware attack is $761,106 or just over 15 Bitcoin at current exchange rates. The average downtime from ransomware attacks is 19 days.

The cost and long-term impacts of cyberattacks mandate a robust security strategy. Cloud computing and data storage can dramatically reduce the threat of cyberattacks. They can also offer rapid recovery should the worst-case scenario occur.

Data is exploding

The amount of data created and stored by organizations has increased exponentially in recent years – with no slow-down in sight. Forbes stated recently that from 2010-2020, the amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed in the world increased from 1.2 trillion gigabytes to 59 trillion gigabytes, an almost 5,000% growth!

The future of data is equally crowded. IDC predicts the five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2024 of the data created, captured, copied, and consumed in the world will be 26%. Ultimately, the amount of data created over the next three years will be more than the data created over the past 30 years. How much more data is your organization creating each year? Where will you store it? How much will it cost?

Is CAPEX the right financial model for your IT investments?

Traditionally, companies have purchased their data storage and computing resources via capital expenditures (CapEx). Now, with the advent of cloud-based Storage as a Service (STasS) providers, acquiring storage services as an operating expense (OpEx) has become a viable option.

When you acquire equipment through capital spending, you own it. That means you also own all the costs of space to house it, electricity to power and cool it, and IT staff to support, maintain, upgrade, and replace it. The result is that under the CapEx model, not only will there be substantial up-front costs to acquire needed hardware and software, but you’ll also have on-going OpEx expenses that are necessary to keep the equipment running.

Often CIOs or IT managers have decided between the CapEx and OpEx approaches to providing for their storage needs by the simple method of spreading the purchase cost of an asset over its expected service life, and then comparing that figure to the monthly fee a cloud services provider would charge for the same amount of storage. But that method can seriously understate the real costs of capital spending for storage because it overlooks the significant costs involved in operating, maintaining, and supporting company-owned equipment.

As companies scramble to cope with an exponentially growing amount of data they have to deal with, the cloud-based STaaS (Storage as a Service) model has been gathering momentum. Businesses are beginning to investigate how to switch from CapEx to OpEx in their own datacenter. IT Brand Pulse projects that by 2020 STaaS will command fully half the storage marketplace, rising to 80 percent by 2023. How will your IT infrastructure investments be acquired and managed?

Zadara Edge Cloud

We are proud to offer Zadara’s Edge Cloud services as a complement to our hardware offerings. Their industry-leading Storage as a Service and Virtualization/Cloud Computing capabilities provide both remote and on-premises computing, backup and disaster recovery capabilities that fit any IT budget and computing need.