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Cloud computing is becoming increasingly commonplace—even for small businesses and local experts. Where once cloud computing felt like an option only for giant corporations and household names, it’s now a much more accessible tool that busy healthcare providers, attorneys, and financial and accounting professionals can use to elevate their operations. And to make sure your system is properly installed, organizations need cloud integration services to get the job done.
Today, systems and solutions are abundantly available to empower these professionals to do more—and now professionals are employing multiple solutions to refine and expand their operations.
But all these systems can create data silos, with isolated data that can’t communicate from one system to the next, rendering much of this data clunky or unusable. That’s where cloud integration services come into play. Discover the benefits of cloud integration, the different kinds of cloud integration available, and how cloud support services can make integration simple and effortless.
What Is Cloud Integration?
Think of cloud integration as bringing all of your systems together, uniting your solutions to connect all the separate elements and varied resources that operate as part of your larger ecosystem. It creates a single, cohesive environment that grants you and your organization seamless access to all of your applications, data, systems, and services in one place.Cloud integration can be a major game-changer for busy professionals. With the advent of public cloud computing, as-a-Service models, and other scalable digital resources and services, there’s a real wealth of tools at your disposal. But in some cases, using such a diverse array of resources can also create IT silos that separate departments and administrators from one another. In these instances where information is so spread out, it can be hard to manage different resources and data sets.
Without cloud integration, it’s up to your organization to integrate these systems manually. This requires valuable time and resources and opens the door for human error, both of which can put specialized experts and professionals in jeopardy.
Cloud integration unites these systems to eliminate data silos and keep every team member—and every system—on the same page. This means you end up with the most current information without all the manual hassle. The benefits of cloud integration line up with the needs of many professionals because:
- You can access data from any device, anywhere, and anytime
- You can unify data across your systems to eliminate errors and foster cohesion
- You can support agile, efficient data operations
Cloud Integration Benefits
Cloud integration is all about bringing disparate systems together. Driven and busy professionals know the importance of streamlining their processes—making their operations more efficient to save time and resources.
What does this increased efficiency look like in the world of cloud data integration? Here are some ways that cloud integration can improve overall business efficiency:
Fewer On-Premises Solutions
Cloud-based integration makes it easier to eliminate on-premises hardware and software. This cuts down on the funds required to invest in, maintain, and monitor these systems. With cloud integration, professionals can streamline the way they manage their data and then tailor them to meet their own needs.
Improved Accuracy
Cloud integration improves communication between systems, ensuring that merging data is the same from one system to the next, automatically updating data across the IT infrastructure in real time. This means that no matter what system you’re operating, you can trust you’re working from the most accurate information.
Better Flexibility
With cloud-based services of any kind, the pay-as-you-go model means you only pay for exactly what you need. Cloud-based integration makes it easier to scale up and down as dictated by your operations.
Stronger Security
Cloud integration sets the stage for faster detection of vulnerabilities and threats—because cloud computing is so secure. Thanks to real-time monitoring, vendor patches and updates, and faster neutralization of suspicious activity, data is more secure both in transit and at rest. Benefits also include stronger security features, data encryption, access control, and multi-factor authentication.
Enhanced Customer Satisfaction
IT infrastructures that are powered by cloud-based integration benefit from high availability and improved responsiveness. For professionals with customer-facing solutions, this benefit is passed directly onto customers. Regardless of whether or not customers interact with this technology though, cloud integration consolidates all data into one centralized platform and improves availability overall to better address customer needs and the needs of the organization as a whole, even during peak usage times.
Cut Down on Redundancies
Cloud integration services are all about removing work and data silos. In these silos, the same data has to be stored in multiple places to ensure it’s available for every system that needs it. However, with cloud integration, this data can flow freely between systems, eliminating the need for frustrating manual integrations or duplicate data.
Unifying Your Environment With Cloud Integration Services
With cloud integration, there’s a real need to bring all of an organization’s systems together in a way that’s best suited to their solutions and operational needs—which means professionals need to choose an approach to maximize the potential of their cloud integration.
The key to a successful, efficient integration is maximizing the value of each integration. Here are a few of the most common approaches to cloud integration services.
- Integration Platform Software: This solution is ideal for those who have a large number of integrations to manage, complex integrations, or when data has to be modified in some way to pass from one application or system to another.
- Integration Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS): iPaaS is a lot like integration software in how it works. The primary difference is that this service is hosted in the cloud. Professionals like healthcare providers, financial experts, or attorneys may opt for iPaaS solutions when they want a service to outsource operations but don’t mind the limited functionality for on-premises application integrations.
- SaaS Vendor Tooling: Some Software-as-a-Service providers come equipped to support integrations. In some cases, this may require third-party extensions or plug-ins, but overall, these integrations may be simple to integrate—but also potentially a bit less flexible or easy to refine and control.
- Custom Code Integrations: Professionals who have developers or IT experts on staff may opt to create their own custom, direct integrations. While this may make sense for a lot of the systems in an IT infrastructure, not every organization may have the capabilities or skill sets to make this happen.
- Function Platform-as-a-Service (fPaaS): Some organizations are using function-based, platform-as-a-service tools to build a custom set of integrations. This is ideal for those who need more than one kind of integration. This does require a sophisticated skill set to navigate both function-oriented development and cloud-native architectures.
Cloud Support Services for Professionals with Christo IT
Whether you have just one or two cloud-based solutions or a whole list of systems, your data needs to flow freely to optimize it. Many professionals at the top of their field are maximizing their potential with cloud computing and other cloud-based solutions. They have the flexibility to access their data anytime and anywhere and support free, secured movement of data from one system to the next.
But there are so many hours in the day—and selecting and implementing the right cloud integration strategies takes time and technical knowledge. Rather than lose time and billable hours to figure these cloud integration strategies out themselves, many of Philadelphia’s leading professionals are employing Christo IT’s cloud support services. They get all the benefits of cloud integration and other cloud computing capabilities without all the hassle of trying to take on cloud integration themselves.
At Christo IT, our goal is always to provide our clients with the latest innovations in cloud computing. Discover more about our cloud support services here, then connect with our team to learn more!
