What is Enterprise Cloud Computing?
The enterprise cloud describes cloud computing services which usually combine the resources and features of the public and private cloud into a best-in-class hybrid model specifically tailored to business customers.
There are some distinct characteristics expected of an enterprise cloud offering which include a focus on easy scalability, reliability, redundancy and performance, a high level of customisation and easy migration of legacy software, usually with support for virtualisation.
Enterprise services also tend to boast centralised, top-down management and fine-grained permission controls, centralised resource and application monitoring, and a dedicated customer-controlled network. They may also be hosted on machines specifically allocated to the enterprise client to minimise the security and performance drawbacks of multi-tenancy.
Organisations can dramatically reduce the cost of business IT operations by choosing an enterprise cloud solution as they are resilient, flexible, safe and secure. Healthcare, retail, financial institutions, manufacturing, and government agencies are all using enterprise cloud to great effect.
Benefits of Enterprise Cloud Computing
1. Cost-Efficiency
Most enterprise cloud solutions are based on a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Which means businesses only pay for the resources they use instead of paying a flat fee for what may be an overallocation of resources. Additionally, cloud computing allows organisations to save money on in-house investments in staff and hardware. They can choose to rely on their third-party service provider to manage much of the operational overheads, lowering overall IT expenditure.
2. Security
Large-scale deployments often have a larger attack surface rendering them potentially more vulnerable to hacking and other cybercrimes. Enterprise cloud services feature state-of-the-art security tools, fine-grained permission management and extensive network monitoring to prevent attacks. It also offloads some of the responsibility of securing the infrastructure, such as physical security, to the cloud service providers.
3. Resiliency
Enterprise clouds have solid recovery solutions in case of a disaster such as service outage, destruction of the physical infrastructure, or even cyberattacks. Data loss can result in massive financial losses and even the collapse of a business. However, most cloud service providers use efficient recovery software, and automated backup plans to mitigate such issues.
4. Flexibility
Flexibility is one of the most useful features of an enterprise or business cloud. Organisations have the option of increasing or decreasing the resources available to meet their changing requirements. This can significantly reduce costs.
5. Automation
Enterprise cloud services provide off-the-shelf or built-in automation tools to facilitate the management and deployment of various applications and tools, lowering technical overheads and turning what used to be daily operational responsibilities into one-time set-and-forget solutions.
Features of an Enterprise Cloud
- Combines the features of cloud computing into a model which best suits business customers.
- Offers efficient and reliable infrastructure for all types of applications.
- Focus on ease of use and automation.
- High flexibility allows companies to implement customised solutions.
- Easy integration with existing on-site or remotely hosted legacy services.
Takeaways
An enterprise cloud is designed to be more suitable for large businesses combining the benefits of both private and public cloud options. The term enterprise cloud is often dismissed as a marketing buzz-word for private or hybrid cloud services aimed at large businesses.
While there are some similarities between the enterprise and hybrid cloud services, enterprise cloud services are focussed explicitly on meeting business needs out of the box.
An enterprise cloud can additionally be brought on-site with some providers leasing and managing extensible hardware in the customers’ on-premises data centre. Still, it provides many additional features, which makes enterprise cloud solutions an excellent choice for business customers.
For more information about enterprise cloud, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpful and professional cloud specialists who are more than happy to answer any questions you might have.