In business, it is part of the job to look ahead, forecast for the future and be prepared for a changing landscape. The people with the corner offices are paid the big bucks to make these predictions and lead their companies to success.

What does the future of your business look like?

Here’s a window into the future of our business, Cloud Services and IaaS:

Recently, Gartner released a research report stating that Cloud IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) will make up 25% of overall hosting market share by the end of 2011. Infrastructure as a Service has flourished and become more and more attractive as a service for start-ups to enterprise businesses worldwide. It allows all hardware architectures to be virtualized, including processors, storage, firewalls and other network resources by cloud service providers. Often, it is provided as on-demand and/or pay-as-you-use plan to clients, which is appealing in both efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

According to an In-Stat report, IaaS is destined to grow quickly over the next four years, culminating in a $4 billion market by 2015. While implementing an IaaS plan will save large enterprise businesses huge costs in maintenance, network administration, energy budget and labour, “Infrastructure-as-a-service is also gaining traction, especially in the small business market.” (In-Stat)

Additional data concludes:

• Overall public cloud computing (IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS) is set to grow 153% from 2010 to 2015.
• Small business (5 to 99 employees) is the fastest growing size segment growing from $2.5 billion by 2010 to $6.6 billion by 2015.
• Small business account for over half of the market in SaaS and IaaS.
• The top 5 vertical markets for IaaS in terms of 2011 market revenue will be hospitality and food, healthcare and social services, and retail trade.  The bottom 5 verticals will be mining, forestry, fishing, and agricultural services and utilities.

Resource: http://www.instat.com/press

By all accounts, Cloud Services and particularly IaaS are set to take off in the very near future mainly because it offers businesses big and small a cost-effective, efficient and practical way to manage and build on their infrastructure.

The Cloud isn’t clearing any time soon.

The number one priority for a small business is to keep costs down. By outsourcing IT and server hosting, and focusing on a core specialty businesses are able to make the most out of their budgets. For example, running a data center and having in-house IT is most likely not a core requirement for a small business – especially in the initial stages. With outsourcing IT and refocusing resources on more strategic plans, you have the ability to increase revenue and profitability.

Small business owners and startups often find it difficult to find a budget for the resources needed such as hardware, networking, licenses and staff required that are now a part of almost every business.

If your IT is inhouse, a small business owner will often spend a lot of valuable time on the unnecessary. It is also much more costly to be taking care of server hardware, IT management and network infrastructure inhouse for a small business whose core specialty does not include IT. Most start ups or small business can’t keep up with a one time or large monthly expenses to provide their IT infrastructures management and time required.

However, luckily for small businesses there are companies like Atum who provide a competitive advantage among the large enterprises. Outsourcing server hosting & IT does not only result in cutting costs and saving time but it also provides a small business with the same resources as larger enterprises allowing them to compete with the “big fish in the sea”. Small business IT worries are also taken away so that they can now focus on areas in their business that they’re needed most.

And the advantages don’t only stop at cost cutting by outsourcing IT. Choosing the right dedicated server hosting option that is small business focused is very imporant as it will provide the best results. The recent trend in dedicated server hosting and cost cutting (while increasing performance) is virtual private server (VPS) hosting. For example, If you have 5 servers in your office that only take up room, power and management, you’re able to convert your current dedicated servers into VPS servers instantly reducing operational and hardware costs.

Quantitatively speaking, a small business is able to save hundreds if not thousands per month. It’s everything you need and expect from the traditional way of hosting, except for a low fee of monthly fee and peace of mind.  

In the small business world saving money is just as important as making money. When a small business reduces the need for dedicated servers hosting in house into outsourcing dedicated virtual servers, it results in significant increased savings.

A small business always wants to save money and improve performance in different areas. In small business operations, this means choosing a managed VPS hosting option. So to all the small businesses and start ups out there… consider a managed VPS hosting solution that has changed how things are done for the better.

Until next time!