Gartner predicted in 2020 the world's spending on information technology to fall by 8% to $3.4 trillion. But the cloud is the only exception. The cloud market is expected to grow. Moreover, the speed of such growth is much faster than the experts had estimated before the pandemic. The growth of spending on public clouds by the end of 2020 should be 19%; with cloud video conferencing growth by 24.3% and cloud telephony – by 8.9%.
In recent years, cloud computing technology has become an inevitable part of every organization and business. As a significant growth catalyst, the cloud approach has revolutionized the way companies do business. In this article, we point out the importance of cloud computing solutions for international business and describe the advantages of Russian cloud services for foreign companies.
Why choose Russian clouds
Security
Storing information on a cloud server abroad will provide additional protection. It will be tough for intruders to get to your data without your permission. Having a physical server in your office, you will be virtually more vulnerable to local intruders, and data loss can seriously disrupt business processes and even stop the company's operation. And while downtime, the business loses customers. To avoid this, store your information in the cloud overseas. You can move only part of the organization's employees (for example, accounting departments) to work in the cloud.
Service level
Russian cloud services are convenient for modern enterprises that focus on the international market. Cloud services can provide uninterrupted support for key business operations or be a backup storage facility for corporate data. Cloud providers in Russia deliver a world-class quality of service and use Hi-End equipment, while at the same time the price can often be lower than similar offers of large vendors.
Improved customer service
Customer service is vital to business success. In today's competitive environment, offering better customer service can give you an edge over your competitors. Cloud applications allow your customers to stay in touch with your company. Having a cloud server in Russia becomes even more important if you are working with Russian nationals. First, it helps to improve the overall UI – the closer the data center to the customers, the better user experience they get. Second, migrating infrastructure to a Russian server is a necessity regarding compliance with local legislation, the law on Personal Data FZ-152.
Which foreign companies would benefit from choosing Russian clouds?
First of all, application or game developers targeting Russian consumers. The geographical location of the cloud plays an important role in this. If the game server is in Russia and the target audience is in another country, users may experience problems even because of seconds of delays in transferring data. The same applies to online stores.
Many companies can use the Russian cloud as backup storage: if something happens to the main data center, you can always restore information from a backup saved on storage systems in the Russian data center.
Key elements of choosing a cloud provider
Data center. A data center is a virtual "home" for your IT infrastructure. And it should be secure.
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) ANSI/TIA-942 ranks modern data centers into four levels of reliability – Tier I, Tier II, Tier III, Tier IV. Each level has specific standards for reliability – architectural features of the data center premises, number of communication channels and power supply, measures of physical access control, climate control, fire safety, etc. Tier-III, Tier-IV are the most secure data centers.
Hardware. A good cloud provider should have enterprise-level equipment, designed for years of continuous, intensive use. Obviously, it should be provided by trusted vendors, such as HP, Dell, or Huawei. Enterprise-class equipment from leading vendors undergoes a special inspection at the manufacturer's facilities.
Another important factor is when choosing a provider is how long the company has been on the market.
The necessary licenses (FSTEC and FSB) are also crucial, as they allow customers to place in the cloud any information, including personal data, and will also guarantee a legal audit of the company.
An important criterion for customers is getting immediate technical support. Many companies successfully use the practice of regulating the speed of support response to customer requests. This parameter is clearly defined in the Service Level Agreement, which defines the quality of services. If these established criteria are violated, the provider bears financial responsibility. The SLA is a very good indicator of the quality of a Cloud provider.
