Is My Business Ready for Fiber? Part 4: Managed Solutions within the Cloud

Written by Kristi Salmon on January 9, 2018.

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More and more businesses are turning to managed solutions in the cloud to host and monitor their business data infrastructure. A study from CompTIA shows that managed services were ranked as the leading generator of revenue in the last year. Together with the continued growth of cloud applications, managed services can give businesses the bandwidth they need to handle additional operations that will increase productivity.

What can managed cloud solutions do for your business? And if you’re heading down that path, why should your business consider fiber-optic broadband to power them?

Working in the Clouds

Managed cloud services provide skilled resources to augment the current in-house functionalities and IT infrastructures using the cloud. There are many tasks that businesses can move to managed cloud services, including:

  • Network operations/office virtualization
  • Security & disaster recovery
  • Big data storage
  • Flexibility to use mobile devices outside office

For many businesses, especially those that may not have a large or even dedicated IT staff, having a solution help manage these crucial components allows a business to move full steam ahead as it were. And because these solutions are managed within the cloud, it means that these services have continuous uptime access, along with faster responses when things might go wrong.

A few benefits of managed cloud solutions are:

  • Agility to adapt to technology changes
  • Conduct business from anywhere with full access to data
  • Access to newer technologies that integrate back-office operations
  • Ability to better foster collaboration with remote employees
  • Lower costs in regards to maintenance and hardware

While the above seems like a simple answer to several business challenges, being able to deliver these capabilities is paramount. Despite being in the cloud, businesses still need to be sure they are able to meet managed cloud services’ data transfer requirements.

Why Managed Cloud Services Need Bandwidth

In our series, Does Your Business Have Enough Bandwidth?, we looked at the many applications and platforms that businesses use on a daily basis that can slow down the entire office, causing bottlenecks at the worst of times. Yes, while your files and documents might be sitting pretty within the cloud, it takes bandwidth in order to reach them; if several employees are trying to access files from your cloud service, while several others are using a VoIP phone system, while another set is in the midst of a web conference, the network might slow down considerably, causing calls to drop or hiccup.

A few years ago, Cisco’s Global Cloud Index report (for 2012-2017) forecasted that 69% of all data center traffic would come from cloud usage in 2017, up from the 46% of traffic in 2012; 17% of that traffic would come from users using it for web surfing, video streaming, collaboration, and connected devices. 2014 was the first year where the majority of business workloads were in the cloud – 51% versus the 49% that were in traditional IT spaces.

That’s a lot of bandwidth usage, not just for managed cloud services to run, but for employees to continue to use their programs without hindrance.

Why Gigabit+ Fiber Solutions is the Key

Fiber solutions are proving to be the mechanism to push big data, power multiple location connections, and drive simultaneous access to information. Fiber-optic broadband, especially Gigabit+ Fiber Solutions from Mediacom Business, delivers a super-fast and reliable connection transferring data at the speed of light. While speed is an obvious reason for using Gigabit level internet, when talking about managed cloud solutions, capacity is another driving force for using this platform of broadband delivery.  Having access to symmetrical speeds both for upload and download activity is paramount as a business is retrieving information from the cloud. Speed and capacity work together in this instance so employees won’t experience lag time nor will the managed cloud solutions have any difficulty in maintaining and managing your infrastructure without disrupting the core business.

Fiber-optic broadband can carry more data throughput than any technology before it, and it’s more durable in that it’s laid in the ground so it’s not affected by the elements. Mediacom Business continues to lead the charge in rural America as one of the providers who are set on deep-rooting fiber in their service areas so businesses can have the same broadband access as those in large metropolitan areas.  This drives competition outside local geographical boundaries but also allows a business to take advantage of advanced platforms like managed services – the types of technology that are going to take businesses to that next level of innovation.

 

Resources:

Cisco Global Cloud Index Report: 2012-2017

Does Your Business Have Enough Bandwidth? Part II: Speed Needy Applications

Is My Business Ready for Fiber? Part 2: Preparing for Business Video Content



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