A few years ago, web applications were deployed on physical servers. Today, cloud computing is no longer just a buzzword—it’s the true answer to more scalable, resilient, and available services than traditional hosting. But the decision to move to the cloud is not a simple one.

Cloud services are certainly efficient and effective, they allow an increase in productivity and often reduce costs, but they are also complex to understand and use. However, deploying and managing applications in the cloud can be complicated for a company that does not have dedicated technical teams. In order to make the most of cloud computing, it is often necessary to beef up the technical skills of the teams.

Top 4 reasons to move to the cloud

To be honest, I can think of more than just four reasons to move to the public cloud. But to keep this short and sweet, I’ll go over the top 4 reasons I have on my list—flexibility, software updates, advanced services, and cost control.

1. Flexibility

Cloud services allow great flexibility according to needs and the traffic of a web platform. It allows automatic adaptation of the number of servers needed. For example, during a traffic peak, the number of servers will increase and, in the opposite case, automatically decrease through auto-scaling. These services are automatic and on-demand. The client does not need to contact the host several days in advance to predict these changes.

2. Software updates

Cloud vendors take care of software updates, including security patches. This allows the client company to focus on its core business. It is important to note, however, that software updates are not always automated. Often, updates need to be manually installed by the customer. Software updates are checked and validated, and finally proposed to customers. It is still up to customers to push the button and test their code with the upgraded components.

3. Advanced services

Cloud vendors are not about computing power anymore. They will feature many advanced services for independent software vendors (ISV) and tech companies to reuse. Databases, message queues, and load balancers are trivial offers nowadays. Features that would take weeks or months to build from the ground up in private data centers are now available with a single click, always online and up-to-date.

4. Cost control

Cloud computing helps control the cost of hosting. Indeed, by deploying and managing applications in the cloud, the customer only pays for its actual consumption. The public cloud offers several undeniable advantages. It is quick to implement if you have a good tool or internal skills, adapting to changing customer needs. This simplifies the day-to-day tasks of users who no longer have to anticipate the server additions with their host and allows them to pay only for usage.

The advantages and benefits of PaaS solutions

PaaS (Platform as a Service) is an increasingly popular software model in the cloud computing industry. For this type of service, the applications are hosted and managed directly on the internet and they’re easily accessible from any browser. It offers the right level of abstraction for developers and it is built on shared good practices.

PaaS also helps reduce costs. It is a pay-as-you-go service that allows customers to adapt to the growth rate of their company. 

The quickest way to build, run, and scale apps in the cloud

Artifakt is a PaaS solution to deploy, host, and manage the most popular web applications (Magento, Akeneo, WordPress, Prestashop, Symfony, Marello, Drupal, OroCommerce, etc) in the public cloud.

Build optimized architectures

Artifakt integrates the complexity of cloud computing and the multitude of services offered by cloud providers in a user-friendly interface. The platform offers optimized architectural templates designed for applications in the cloud and allows the deployment and duplication of applications in a scalable manner without additional configuration. 

Artifakt takes care of the essential security tasks, such as renewing SSL certificates, setting up the Web Application Firewall (WAF) to block malicious attacks, and configuring networks to isolate applications inside the public cloud. 

Manage and run applications

Artifakt can manage all environments and applications from a single interface. The user is completely in control of everything:

• resize servers
• automatically set up the CDN for the images
• trigger background jobs
• integrate data flows from and to their servers with SFTP
• refresh the caches
• duplicate and/or synchronize an environment
• add new domains

Are you looking to deploy your applications in the cloud? Contact us to find out how Artifakt can help you.