Expert Insight: Is now the time to move to a cloud construction solution?
Many construction companies have made the move to a cloud-hosted platform such as COINS while others still favor on-premise IT systems.
In this new expert insight, COINS Technical Services expert, Christa Richardson, outlines 5 key benefits of moving from an on-premise based IT system to a cloud-hosted construction solution such as COINS, which is securely hosted on Microsoft Azure, the leading cloud for business applications. Is it time you made the move to a cloud construction solution?
Reason 1: No more hardware replacement costs
Let’s be honest…Hardware replacement costs and server maintenance can be expensive, not to mention the technical support time and effort to maintain that equipment. And although it might be difficult to directly compare the costs of running infrastructure in the cloud to traditional on-premise deployments, the bottom line is, that a cloud hosted solution such as COINS will offer you options that would not only be very expensive to replicate with on-premise equipment, but also, in some cases, prove difficult or unfeasible, especially for smaller organizations. A solution such as COINS Construction Cloud converts traditional technology capital expenses into an operational expense, eliminating server and related equipment purchases, and boosting your construction companies cash flow flexibility.
Reason 2: Optimal disaster recovery
Disaster Recovery planning has always been and continues to be a critical component to business continuity in this ever-changing world. To best prepare for disaster recovery and business continuity, COINS construction solutions offer features which guarantee minimal data loss in the event of a data centre failure, minimizing the risks associated with on-premise systems.
Reason 3: Flexibility, agility and automation
There is growing demand for flexibility, agility and automation where users need faster computer performance and scalable resources. BMC reports that ‘from a business perspective, organizations are focusing on agility and automation as a means to facilitate faster time to value, so they are migrating mission critical IT workloads to the cloud to address those business demands. Unlike traditional datacenter infrastructure that limits these capabilities, the public cloud model such as Microsoft Azure offers the flexibility to scale infrastructure resources on-demand.’ (Raza and Kidd, 2020)
The power of virtualization makes it easy to scale your construction solution as you grow. For instance, if you are adding more COINS users or have acquired new businesses, COINS takes care of increasing horsepower and resources on the server. Gone are the days of being limited by the physical server equipment size or capabilities.
Reason 4: More time to focus on strategic goals
Using COINS cloud hosting for your construction solution will relieve your IT team from the everyday burden of system administration tasks. Wave goodbye to the days of worrying about installing fixes or service packs, performing non-live environment refreshes, database tuning, version upgrades, backup monitoring, disaster recovery and server maintenance. COINS will manage all of this as well as continually monitor the server and databases for maximum availability. Services which will certainly lighten the workload load on your IT team, allowing them time to focus on strategic business goals.
Reason 5: Cloud computing – a secure alternative
Security is most likely to be the main reason you may or may not be thinking about moving to a cloud hosted construction ERP. Security is at the forefront of everyone’s mind especially with the frequent headline news of major organizations suffering from hacked services and networks. Some companies believe that having physical control of their servers is safer, while others see that security is more stringent with Microsoft Azure Cloud offerings. Regardless of where your company might stand on that debate, when it comes to security, Gartner’s forecast highlights the shifting focus toward cloud solutions to run mission-critical security and performance sensitive IT workloads. The cloud industry is proving that on-premise datacenter systems don’t automatically translate into stronger security and that cloud computing now offers a secure alternative. COINS is hosted on Microsoft Azure, which is trusted by global companies, governments and start-ups alike.
COINS Construction ERP is built and hosted on Microsoft Azure, the leading cloud for business applications. While other solutions may be based on client-server software and require third-party infrastructure to run remotely, COINS construction software coupled with Azure eliminates all of that, enabling secure and resilient solutions out-of-the-box.
COINS Construction Cloud also integrates with Microsoft 365, making COINS solutions easily compatible with SharePoint, Outlook, Teams and more.
To talk to a COINS expert about making the move to a cloud construction solution please contact us.
More about Christa Richardson, COINS Technical Services expert
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