Technology continues to evolve at an alarming rate, as it has for decades. With modern businesses being so reliant on their IT infrastructures, it’s more important than ever to keep up-to-date to stay ahead of your competitors. But how can you achieve this in a cost-effective manner when technology is changing every year?
Most businesses are already familiar with the software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud computing model. In fact, that’s exactly what you’re using when you use web-based email or a browser-based application such as Office 365 online. However, to take advantage of the latest technology, you can hardly ignore hardware — hence the rising popularity of hardware-as-a-service (HaaS).
1. No More Obsolescence
Most computer hardware becomes obsolete within a few years of purchasing it, and thousands of companies still have to make do with legacy hardware for which there is little or no support. Replacing hardware every few years is enormously expensive, especially if you maintain your own on-premises data center and a network of powerful workstations.
With the HaaS model, you rent the hardware your company needs. The vendor will be responsible for repairing or replacing broken components as per their contractual obligations. However, they’ll also provide timely upgrades to the latest technology to ensure that your business can always stay one step ahead of the competition. That’s something you’re not likely to achieve if you’re stuck with yesterday’s technology.
2. Lower Capital Expense
One of the biggest fears that businesses have when it comes to IT infrastructure is paying for costly repairs, replacements and upgrades. A complete overhaul of a dated IT infrastructure can easily cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. However, with the HaaS model, you can say goodbye to your hardware expense woes for good by avoiding paying any money up front.
Instead of committing to enormous initial expenses and the depreciation schedules that come with them, the HaaS model provides a far more manageable monthly operating expense. With a fixed monthly cost, it will be much easier to stay on top of your technology budget. The predictability factor will also be taken care of, since your vendor will have a vested interest in keeping your systems running smoothly.
3. Reduced Downtime
Cloud computing models are proactive by nature, meaning that they are intended to deliver a consistently high level of service for as long as your business needs it. Managed services providers are under contract to offer ongoing support, and you should be able to rely on them 24 hours per day, 365 days per year — something you can rarely achieve effectively with an in-house team.
Often, smaller businesses don’t have the on-premises resources and expertise to maintain brand new systems to such a level that they always function optimally. Consequently, a system outage can lead to a downtime that takes much longer to resolve. HaaS vendors, however, will be contractually obliged to restore malfunctioning systems within a given time limit.
4. Improved Security
It’s hardly surprising that IT security has become the business concern of the century. When it comes to security, newer is almost always better, as is a regular maintenance schedule. Hardware manufacturers release updates to protect their products, while software developers release service packs and patches on a regular basis to fix any potential security holes.
Whatever your company’s security needs, it’s important to choose a vendor that meets the standards you require, particularly with regards to any compliance and regulatory requirements that may concern your industry. HaaS vendors may also offer remote firewall management and other managed security services to prevent potential threats from ever getting near your company network in the first place.
5. Unlimited Scalability
Last, but certainly not least, unlimited scalability is perhaps the greatest benefit of all with any cloud computing model. With more traditional computing infrastructures, businesses need to pay big money and undergo often lengthy and complicated deployment processes to expand their network as their requirements grow. However, HaaS is designed to grow and adapt along with your business.
Ideally, your business should pay for the IT services it needs. Nothing more and nothing less. If your business needs to scale back, for example, then you probably won’t want to be wasting money on unneeded resources. On the other hand, you don’t want a growing business to be held back by limited technology. Fortunately, HaaS can scale with your business and adapt constantly to its unique and changing requirements.
Dyrand is one of Canada’s leading private cloud service providers, offering the complete range of IT services from security to infrastructure to VoIP. Give us a call today to learn how our scalable solutions can be tailored to suit the needs of your business.