November 22, 2016 / by Ben Lloyd
The Cloud - helping you to survive Brexit, Trumpocalypse and worse
Ever since Britain shocked the world with a vote to leave the European Union, the headlines have been filled with dire predictions about the state of the UK economy. With Donald Trump winning the US presidential election, the stories have become almost apocalyptic in scale – some have even dubbed the result “The Trumpocalypse”.
Whether any of these forecasts actually come true or not, only time will tell. But in the meantime businesses in the UK and beyond are trying to plan for every eventuality – including potentially leaving the country to set up base in a more stable nation.
The cloud allows your business to be anywhere
Moving infrastructure is expensive – in terms of capital spend and time. Crossing international borders makes the process even harder, even if there are significant benefits in the long term.
A growing business cannot typically shut down for a week (or more) while equipment and people are migrated to a new headquarters. And if moving outside the EU, there are questions about red tape and import duty that will also need to be addressed. The process is a logistical nightmare, so generally only the largest organisations can take advantage.
Fortunately cloud services can help to reduce many of these headaches – at least in terms of IT systems. Much of your infrastructure can be replicated exactly using Amazon Web Services, even down to the software and configurations that your team relies on.
Traditionally an international migration would require a whole new data centre to be built in advance, and data copied from old to new. This approach requires significant capital investment, effectively doubling the IT spend. It also leaves a redundant data centre that needs to be disposed of securely – almost certainly at a loss.
Moving without moving anything
The beauty of cloud services is that the move is completely virtual. Your data is copied to the cloud and is available immediately – there is no downtime at all, so your business remains in operation during the migration of other assets and people.
And because all of the supporting hardware needed to replicate your IT infrastructure is included with the Amazon Web Services subscription, there is no duplicated spend on equipment you already own.
The cloud is famous for providing flexibility in the way you work – but it also increases the flexibility in terms of where you work. Which means that your business is ready to move, at greatly reduced cost, should trading conditions in the UK get worse.
This ability to move can also be used whenever you choose. So your business is free to move as often as political or trading conditions change. An investment in the flexibility of cloud services could deliver savings time and time again.
To learn more about cloud services and how they prepare your business to avoid political storms – like Brexit – please get in touch.
