Are you a small business owner overwhelmed by the complexities of IT management due to budget constraints and limited human resources? Hosting on provider data centers can help save on the purchase and maintenance of hardware and software, and importantly, save time.
The Problem with Small Companies
Progress in digitalization touches manufacturing companies too. Larger companies have entire IT departments, while smaller ones might have a single "IT guy" handling everything from operating system updates, fixing Wi-Fi issues, to buying printer toner. This person spends a large part of their time performing routine system maintenance.
Such individuals don't have time to explore new IT trends because they are busy maintaining existing systems and solutions. When a new server is purchased, migrating data to it takes up a lot of time, and this activity does not generate any profit! Yet, profit is crucial for any business.
Behind Closed Doors in a Manufacturing Company
If we look behind the closed doors of a manufacturing company, we usually find an ERP system, shared drives, a user management system, and various application servers, typically all located physically within the company. This means costs for renting space and infrastructure (cooling, ventilation, maintenance, backup power supply), which are handled by data centers when migrating to the cloud. Additionally, these systems often do not account for deployment in a mode that supports high availability of the service.
What Does Storing Data in the Cloud Solve?
- System and Application Updates: Operating systems and selected applications can be updated automatically through AWS Systems Manager.
- Data Security: You can rest easy knowing your data is secure in the cloud. Even if a fire breaks out in the building next to your business, your data is protected.
- Attractiveness to Potential Employees: Your company becomes more attractive to potential employees because the AWS cloud system is one of the most modern technologies.
- Centralized Logging: AWS CloudWatch captures and collects logs in one place, simplifying your work because you don't need to handle logging on each instance separately. Logs are stored centrally.
- Scalable Infrastructure: Instead of an oversized on-premise infrastructure, the cloud allows you to increase or decrease the capacity of server instances according to current needs.
- Security and Availability: Lastly, migrating data to the cloud resolves the security of software and hardware with guaranteed service availability. Specifically for manufacturing companies, the production system is often connected to physical equipment at the workplace (machines). In such cases, it's crucial for these applications to function flawlessly. Any service outage means machines stop, leading to financial losses.
If you are unsure about the security settings
You can use AWS Inspector to check them. AWS Inspector conducts various tests to verify that everything is correctly set up and highlights sensitive spots in your cloud network.