More and more businesses are moving their critical workloads to the cloud because of transformative operational efficiency, productivity, agility, elasticity, and profitability, in addition to its low cost. Nowadays, companies, educational institutions, and governments alike have been tapping cloud providers for services such as cloud-native applications and secure data storage and management.

In its Cloud Vision 2020: The Future of the Cloud survey, cloud performance monitoring platform LogicMonitor revealed that by 2020, 83% of enterprise workloads will be driven by the cloud. This should come as no surprise as the cloud offers many benefits to companies: it is cost-efficient, convenient, and scalable.

But, contrary to what its name suggests, the cloud is not just a formation floating freely in the sky. While the cloud itself is not a physical entity, it is a vast network comprising multiple physical locations, which house software, hardware, and services that are primarily accessed through the internet. This vast network is meant to operate as a single, unified ecosystem that powers operations on a global scale.

As such, while individuals and companies are now enjoying the rather invisible omnipresence of the cloud, what they fail to realize is that massive data centers all over the world are working their servers overtime to make this possible—and this comes at a cost.

Keeping an Eye on the Cloud

The data that goes up the cloud inevitably comes back down to a dedicated data center housing vast fields of servers. These data centers are massive physical structures that need regular maintenance and entail upfront infrastructure costs and operating expenses, the biggest of which is electricity cost.

When it comes to managing cloud budget, businesses have two options.

First, they can always opt to do everything manually. As with any business expense, the cost of cloud computing services should be planned out and regularly monitored. Given this, the first step to a company’s cloud journey is cloud cost monitoring and governance planning. Essentially, this means that companies should pay attention to what they are spending and where they are spending it on.

Governance planning for cloud cost monitoring can start by separating the costs of cloud resources versus other business resources, such as manpower costs and operating costs. After identifying and separating these expenses incurred for cloud resources, one must choose the appropriate cloud cost-usage monitoring and governance tools for their business. These tools not only monitor usage but also impose certain limits on usage for cloud services.

The second option, which is perhaps more cost-effective and efficient in the long run, is to employ the help of Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon, Inc. provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies, and governments on a paid subscription basis. Through this flexible payment model, AWS helps eliminate upfront costs as businesses do not have to spend additional resources on tracking and managing how much they are spending on particular cloud services.

An Ideal Partner for Cloud Computing Services

As your trusted business advisor, Globe Business brings AWS within reach for Philippine enterprises. Being the largest AWS customer in the region, we have the reach and scale to support companies as they start on their cloud journey. We aim to serve as your single point of contact for all the cloud services requirements of your business.

Globe Telecom began its cloud transformation journey in 2009 when it started to convert physical servers into a virtualized environment and created ad hoc cloud subscriptions. But it was in 2014 when it became clear how the cloud will impact Globe’s business in a very positive way. So the company decided to adopt a “Cloud First” policy for its infrastructure requirements. Today, 1,800 physical servers were reduced to 800, and 90% of the new infrastructure was provisioned in the cloud in just two days. Subsequently, existing applications were migrated, re-architected, and optimized in the cloud, and Globe started developing cloud-native applications.

The knowledge and experiences gained from Globe Telecom’s nine-year cloud transformation journey are now shared to Philippine companies through Globe Business’ AWS solution. Globe Business offers cloud services to help enterprises migrate and optimize workloads to run efficiently in the cloud, develop cloud-native applications, and support businesses 24/7.

Subscribing to AWS through Globe Business affords a company not only ease of payment through local invoicing priced at an on-demand, pay-per-use model but also convenience from ready-to-use templates that IT teams can employ to build applications easily. With these, Globe Business’ AWS clients can get more than just agility, scalability, and improved customer experience. They can also enjoy flexibility and productivity with AWS features such as backup and storage, application hosting, website building, databases, and so on.

A Cloud-Ready Tomorrow

The future is, undeniably, in the cloud. Imagine the possibilities businesses can create with it. Not only is cloud technology a fundamental part of digital transformation, but it is also integral in improving organizational culture.

Aside from promoting a creative, efficient, and collaborative work environment, cloud services offer employees flexibility. No longer restricted by the need to gather in one place, teams can achieve more results in less time.

With the cloud enabling immediate access to data and digital work tools, the barriers are lifted between the workforce and work. Additionally, cloud technology also provides easier communication between employees and customers, which ultimately leads to a better service. This is an important point to consider, given that the end game of the cloud—as with every technology—is to improve experiences.

Interested to learn more about our products and solutions? Arrange a consultation with a Globe Business Advisor today.