Infrastructure as a service or IaaS is a cloud computing service that offers various services on a pay-as-you-go basis. These services may often include needed services like computing resources, storage, and networking resources on demand. It is one of the four types of cloud services: software as a service(SaaS), platform as a service(PaaS), and serverless.
Now that we know what IaaS is, we move on to choosing one of the various platforms available. This can be tricky for some people or organizations due to many factors. Hence, you’ll want to select a service that provides anything and everything at a reasonable price. You can do your research and still won’t reach a decision because everything will sound too good to be true, or some services are missing something while others miss something else. Today, we’ll be reviewing Amazon Web Services and why many people choose it over other big names like Microsoft Azure and Google platform.
Why Amazon Web Services?
Many experts have called Amazon web services the bang for the buck deal. Amazon web services can run various services and support different ranges of OS. As widely used OS is supported and non-standard ones, their usage becomes quite universal. This universal appeal is again strengthened by its easy and intuitive setup. Management and monitoring features are also some things that are just cherry on top. Let’s move on to the pros and cons of AWS.
● Pros
1. Being close to the community is what AWS does the best. Along with having a wide range of products and features, it has an expanding list of add-ons and integrations from third parties, which makes your life a lot easier.
2. As mentioned, you have a ton of choices of the operating system from Windows to Linux OS server and other options. This makes AWS a massive attraction as OS restrictions make IaaS services less flexible.
3. One of the most important things other than the quality of the services and its pricing is the security of your data. It automatically identifies threats by continuously monitoring the network activity and account behavior within your cloud environment.
4. AWS also provides extensive server support.
● Cons
It isn’t a con if you look at it differently. AWS has a vast selection of choices when it comes to services. This makes it very difficult to determine prices.
What do Amazon Web Services offer?
There is a lot to cover if we get into every service and feature it offers. Hence, we’ll only mention the most attractive features and the ones that are industry standards. To showcase how vast AWS is, let us give you an example: In 2016, AWS launched 1012 new features, and in 2017, it launched additional 1430 new features. That amounts to almost 1500 new features in just two years.
You will be getting the essential IaaS platform services, which are cloud services, including compute, storage and content delivery, databases, and networking. But, as you can tell, this is just the beginning. In addition to these essential services, it also offers mobile developer tools, management tools, Internet of Things(IoT), security, and enterprise apps.
Accessing all these tools is made as easy as it can be. You will be able to control all these tools with extensive admin controls. The admin controls will be accessible via a secure web client. You will be able to control and manage everything with tools like identity management, auditing, monitoring and logging, encryption key creation/control/storage, etc.
Setting up with AWS
If you haven’t done your research or are not intuitive enough, you will run into many problems. Just the number of features alone is enough to overwhelm you. Also, setting up was significantly tricky at the starting time of the services. However, they have improved upon the system, and you can see that it is well thought out and clear.
If your requirements aren’t very complicated, you will be able to handle the setup yourself. However, complex needs require a good consultant who could advise you of the exact services and features that you should be going for. This will also allow you to have the accurate pricing of the services you want. Once you have everything set up in the correct order, you click okay and wait while your infrastructure is built. The time will again depend on the complexity of the infrastructure.
Conclusion
If you manage setting up the infrastructure you want, you’ll likely have excellent performance benchmarks with reasonably reasonable pricing. In addition, you will have great flexibility due to the plethora of available options. AWS is the best choice, no matter which field your organization is in.
Let’s talk about Las Vegas buffets (pre-pandemic, of course).
Depending on which casino you go to, the up-front cost of one admission into a dinner buffet can seem pretty expensive. You’ve already waited in a line that doesn’t move just to get into the actual area. Then, when you get to the register, you’re hit with the sticker shock. For a brief moment, your very rational not-sleep-deprived-at-all mind says, “Is this really worth what I’m paying?”
Then you get inside.
“Sweet mother of foie gras, is all this for ME?!”
Yes. Yes, it is my dear conquistador epicurean. It’s all for you. However much you want, whenever you want it. And if you can’t find something, it’s probably there, anyway.
“You mean I can put hot dogs and lobster on the same plate?” Yes, you can do that.
“A taco, pizza slice, pork chop combination plate?” Yup. That’s in, too.
“You mean ANYTHING?” Ugh, yeah, you’ve got the hang of it.
Okay, let’s leave your inner monologue in the prime rib line and talk about why this experience matters.
Data in business is like a Las Vegas buffet. It’s easier than ever to get lots of different types of data about your business for what is ultimately a small cost upfront (even if it doesn’t look like it). Just recently, a report from a Harvard Business Review Analytic Services Pulse survey showed almost 90% of respondents increasing their amounts of data collection over the past two years.
Once you get that data, though, the trick is figuring out how to use it in such a way that doesn’t bog you down. We want data to work for us, not against us. Like any new venture you put into your business, using data requires you to go into the endeavor with a set of purposes, things you know you want to get out of using data. That’s really the first big hurdle in making data work for you instead of against you.
Here’s how to make data be a team player instead of a diva:
Automate Collection
Customize Reports
Allow Software to Adapt
Get Faster Than Your Competitors
Automate Your Collection Technique
Find an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) program out there that specializes in one or more types of data collection that you need. Programs like Workday, Capella, and E-trade all have their pros and cons. Research them and find the or ones which fit your needs best.
Target The Reporting
Pretty much all automation software allows you to customize what you see in reports. Use those programs to add calculations and set up algorithms so that they highlight the key data points you need the most.
Let The Software Learn
Quite a few ERPs come ready to adapt once they start working for you. As the ERPs start creating reports at your request, they begin to learn what to expect at particular times each month. In turn, because the program knows what you’ll be asking for, it’ll automate its functions to match those needs. If you guide the software smartly, the ERP can eventually do a ton of automating at the end of the month and leave you with the small task of locating anomalies–an incredible timesaver.
Get Ahead Of The Competition
So that survey we mentioned earlier? It also showed 77% of respondents relied on manual processes to collect and use data. Most of those respondents expressed a clear directive to move to automation within the next three years. In other words, the field is starting to figure it out–manual processing is slow, cumbersome, and inefficient. Every day you spend on manual processes means another day you lose ground to a company that automates everything. When you consider the amount of data you need to stay competitive in the first place, it quickly becomes clear that no one on this planet can process all that data manually. The computers are there to help.
The old saying is that you can sometimes have too much of a good thing. Whether it’s food or data, that can be true. Our eyes get so big, and we get so excited that we forget what we’re supposed to do for a hot minute. Then, as we grasp the gravity of what we’re doing, we get intimidated and spooked. But it doesn’t have to be like that all the time.
For business data, knowing how to avoid the inefficient binge can save you extra time and cost on top of the time you’re already losing to manual AP and AR procedures. That’s a big reason why you need to automate ASAP.
Reach out to us if you have questions! We’re ready to help you take the plunge. Let us know how it’s going on our social media pages, and keep checking our blog for more info.
Embrace Your Expansion with Better Database Options
Thoughtful business man looking at a database on a board and trying to solve a problem
No matter how much we love buying up Mediterranean and Baltic Avenue and slapping those hotels down, we’re not going to win unless we either acquire more properties (winning strategy) or just hope to get really lucky and have everyone land on those two spots each time around the board (lazy loser strategy). When we expand our property set, our attention gets diverted to a bunch of places at the same time because we need cash to build up everything all at once. If you don’t have a system in place, you can either spread yourself too thin or not maximize your chances quickly enough and end up in the inevitable flip-the-board-because-Aunt-Agnes-is-a-dirty-rotten-cheater situation.
Unfortunately, sometimes being successful comes with its own drawbacks. If your success dictates expansion, you get to a point where you realize that you can’t run a large enterprise and a small business the same way. With that small business, you can keep tabs on pretty much everything by yourself (or hire a small team of employees and cover all your bases for sure). But with a large enterprise, you have to pick and choose what you can address on a given day at a given time. You need to have systems in place to take care of all of the tasks that you can’t get to because you’re only human (but a really successful one!).
When you expand your business, your databases expand as well. Sadly, as your databases expand, they don’t learn how to coordinate with each other. You are the one who has to make sure they all play nice with each other. That can get really tedious once your database count hits 10, 20, 30, and so on. Wouldn’t it be really nice to have some software that takes away those headaches for you and your employees? Wouldn’t you rather have your employees devote their time to something a little more exciting and innovative during the workday?
Guess what? That software exists! It’s called Multitenant, and it does all of this for us:
Groups databases together in containers
Allows us to update databases in batches rather than individually
Lets us schedule multiple simultaneous backups
Creates multiple containers that we can prioritize for different functions
Permits the moving of individual databases into different containers as needed
You can probably already tell why this software is a game-changer. But in case you need more convincing, consider the following benefits.
Increased Efficiency
If your software is updating multiple databases all at the same time, that means you aren’t losing time manually going from database to database. If you have say, 50 databases to maintain, that process will take forever under older software. Multitenant takes care of that for you.
Maximum Consistency
When you have different databases with different priorities and different needs, you’re not going to update them all in the same way. Trying to remember the various needs of each database opens you up to too much human error. With Multitenant, you can set rules for how your databases are maintained so that it’s done right. Every. Single. Time.
Sweet, Sweet Hardware Relief
Multitenant reduces the need for resources because your individual databases all operate within the program instead of being their own separate entities. That’s going to speed up your computing. You could also use that increased amount of resources to accomplish other tasks, too.
Don’t let your success derail your progress just because your business needs change. Develop a plan and let the technology take care of the tedium. Check out the video below from Oracle to get more insight on how Multitenant works. And don’t forget to sing its praises on our social media pages, too!
