Businesses migrating to the cloud are often surprised to find that after the initial set-up and learning curve, the benefits increase. Along with cost savings, mobility, automatic backup, and storage on demand, the cloud offers truly scalable hosting.
In the days of the dedicated server, adding employees to the network, required large capital outlays for infrastructure and days of setup. With scalable hosting on the cloud, you can add resources, devices and desktops in minutes, at a low cost when compared to infrastructure expenses.
There’s more to scalability than simply adding resources. Starting from scratch adding a network that includes “infrastructure as a service” (IaaS) is only the beginning. The challenge comes from integrating existing architecture into the cloud network. One way businesses can easily adopt cloud computing is through “open innovation.”
Why “Open Innovation” Matters
Open innovation allows companies to leverage scalability. Interoperability isn’t yet inherent on the cloud. Open innovation allows businesses to leverage existing systems and reduce vendor lock while gaining all of the cost efficiencies and scale. Two areas that can immediately offer scalable hosting benefits to businesses are converged infrastructure and virtual desktops.
Converged infrastructure allows businesses to tie together storage, computing and network resources from various existing infrastructures, operating systems and locations. Using pre-configured templates centralizes infrastructure management and virtualization becomes much easier. This allows businesses to manage multiple vendors and expand capacity within their IaaS network.
Businesses can use virtual desktop templates and cloning to deploy additional desktops with lower overall cost. Centralizing cloud servers leverages the scalability of cloud computing. Desktop images and applications can be managed via the cloud allowing businesses to add or remove users quickly, easily, and efficiently. This means that when a large project comes through the door, businesses can immediately scale up to easily add additional workers, applications, storage or RAM and that’s the true definition of scalable cloud hosting.
Auto-Scaling Through the Cloud
Many cloud hosting providers offer auto-scaling and bandwidth elasticity as a service. For example, Togglebox, a cloud host provider, allows for bandwidth elasticity during time of increased usage. By spreading access to various resources on their network, Togglebox automatically handles traffic increases with no noticeable lag time to users. This means that for example, when a business releases a new product and website traffic spikes, Togglebox automatically distributes that traffic through various nodes. When traffic returns to normal, Togglebox automatically reduces resources.
Togglebox servers also handle auto-scaling efficiently through their network. Through VM cloning, and unlimited virtual machine creation within existing resource limits, when that large project comes through the door, Togglebox automatically allows for the creation of additional virtual machines. This allows businesses to scale-up both workers and resources to handle the new work.
The cloud is changing the way business works. Scalable hosting allows the flexibility to increase capacity and staff on an as needed basis without the added expense of large-scale infrastructure purchases. The cloud is the smart way to grow your business, as needed, and at a reasonable cost.