If you’re reading this as a business that holds a growing amount of data, chances are you’re considering migrating to a cloud data warehouse. In this article, we’ll explore five of the biggest benefits that your business can enjoy once you’ve completed the migration.
What are Cloud Data Warehouses?
A cloud data warehouse is a method of data storage that relies on cloud-based servers rather than physical on-premise ones. Their providers offer data solutions that are easy to scale, develop and control. More and more businesses are turning away from on-premise solutions and their associated costs, annoyances, and maintenance issues. They’re choosing, instead, more reliable, efficient, and powerful cloud data warehouse solutions.
5 Benefits of Cloud Data Warehouses
The following list outlines the core benefits that using any of the best cloud data warehouses will bestow on your business when compared with traditional on-premise options. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but will certainly serve as food for thought when making a comparison between the two.
Accessibility
Growing businesses require access to their data and information across a range of devices, teams, and locations. On-premise data storage conveniently offers this, but only in one location and to one team. For businesses that are spread across multiple locations, possibly even countries and continents, a cloud-based solution is far more appropriate.
Remote work is far more feasible and far more efficient given access isn’t hamstrung by location. There’s also a benefit from a security point of view, cloud data warehouses only allow access to specific accounts, removing access from those who are simply in the same location as on-premise data.
Scalability
When businesses look into data storage it’s usually because of a few factors, but one of the main reasons is that they’re outgrowing their current solution and need to expand. Those using on-premise solutions are typically faced with complicated discussions with data engineers, expensive hardware upgrades, and an eye-watering invoice at the end.
Changing to a cloud data warehouse means that they can simply upgrade their package to include more data storage, include different data types, and increase the number of users who access it. Usually, the only expense at this point is an increase in the monthly charge based on a sliding scale.
Efficiency
On-premise solutions rely entirely on the hardware that the business is able to purchase. This hardware degrades over time and can quickly become obsolete. This increases costs but also typically decreases the efficiency of the network. Cloud data warehouses, however, make use of shared systems so that load is split across multiple servers. By drawing on the shared power the data is processed at a far quicker and more efficient rate.
There are also efficiency increases for those accessing the data. With a cloud-based system, they’re also to access data from multiple departments, from around the world, at the click of a button. This means that a sales department in one location can quickly access marketing data from another, and use that information to make clearer and more informed decisions.
Affordability
Generally speaking, cloud data warehouses are less expensive than their on-premise counterpart. As data amounts increase, on-premise costs can increase dramatically when you factor in hardware and employee costs. Cloud solutions do charge a not insignificant fee on a monthly basis, but this pales in comparison to a lifetime on-premise storage solution. This is especially true when you consider the cost that disaster recovery can cost when using an on-premise solution.
Performance
It is in the interest of cloud data warehouse providers to keep their systems running in top order. They retain their customers by delivering a service that is running at peak performance. That means data that is accessible quickly, with minimal downtime, and without interruptions. Providers of cloud solutions will be running a continuous improvement program on their servers, on-premise systems typically are run into the ground, meaning a decrease in performance and speed as time goes on.
Key Takeaways
Cloud data warehouses are the future of data organization and data sharing. More and more organizations are taking the steps to migrate their data holdings to the cloud and make the move away from clunky, outdated on-premise solutions.
- Cloud data warehouses provide more efficiency, greater performance, and lower costs.
- Migrating away from traditional on-premise servers will, in all likelihood, be a decision you won’t live to regret.
