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Ten of the Most Common Reasons for Moving to the Cloud with dotCMS

Will Ezell

For years, companies large and small have been finding ways to take strategic advantage of moving key systems and applications to the cloud. Maybe you've been debating the advantages between an on-premise and an on-the-cloud implementation? Or, maybe you're wondering if it’s time to move your in-house dotCMS set-up to the Cloud? It’s definitely worth consideration, and for many organizations, moving to the cloud can bring some compelling benefits.

Since we've helped many clients make a transition to the cloud, we've been able to identify some familiar and common themes when considering making this important move. To help you in your evaluation of running dotCMS on-premise or on- the-cloud or, if you're considering making a transition, here’s a list of 10 of the most common reasons for moving to the cloud with dotCMS. (Not in any order of priority, the weight and priority of each reason is different for each organization.)

  1. Added Focus
    Moving your dotCMS System to the cloud with dotCMS Cloud Support can help keep your IT resources focused on higher priorities, proprietary systems, and more pressing issues or projects. It can help keep Marketing resources more focused too. Marketer’s can focus on using the system rather than spending time and energy negotiating “services and support” with IT or another department. A move to the cloud can save time and eliminate distractions for both IT and Marketing teams and can even bring new flexibility in resource allocation on both sides.
  2. Reduced Support and Maintenance Footprint
    Moving to the cloud with dotCMS Cloud Support allows business owners to offload the burden of support and maintenance for an entire enterprise application. That means there’s one less system to support and maintain for the IT department. The impact can even be such that IT departments can re-assign resources to other projects. 
  3. Simplify and Consolidate
    Frequently we see customers moving “all their web systems” in one place, on one platform - dotCMS on the cloud, of course! This approach can reduce complexity and lower risk in your organization’s technology environment. Fewer systems, coupled with the subsequent consolidation of support are a great way to simplify IT, and improve operations at the same time.
  4. Reliability
    If you maintain your own servers, downtime happens. Because cloud computing systems build-in the consideration of all types of failures and capacity spikes (overflow, timeouts, network failure etc.), downtimes can be held to a minimum and are often shorter than on a self-managed network. Our experience shows the track record of system reliability and uptime with hosting dotCMS on the cloud is excellent. For some, running dotCMS on the cloud will significantly improve system reliability.
  5. Improved Configuration
    Options In some cases, we've seen that moving to the cloud offers a wider range of system configurations, security settings, and monitoring options beyond the local IT shop’s capabilities. This can be a benefit that is often overlooked. In addition, networking and server configurations can be certified and meet compliance regulations in your particular industry. (Remember that certification and compliance is your responsibility. DotCMS and other 3rd party vendors can offer consulting services that help with system performance, certification and compliance matters.)
  6. On Demand Infrastructure = dotCMS on Demand
    For teams that are growing and need to flex with demand, we’re ready with dotCMS “images” that can be provisioned and deployed within minutes (currently offered exclusively on Amazon AWS). You can add a stand-alone development server, an additional node to your push-publishing set-up or maybe an additional production server to support your next big marketing event or product launch. (Note: licensing cost may apply). On demand infrastructure eliminates lengthy acquisition, purchasing and set-up cycles and overhead. Using Dotcms on the cloud can give your organization flexibility and agility you wouldn't have otherwise.
  7. When a non-IT department “owns” the Web and dotCMS
    Moving to the cloud can be a great option for Non-IT departments that are the “business owners” of dotCMS or “the Web” in their organization. Often staffed with web developers, web designers, content architects and contributors for the system, non-IT departments face the dilemma of getting help to get an upgrade, patch or make a system change.

    Very frequently we see marketing, communications, admissions, and PR departments with web developers on staff yet the technical system administration (think upgrades) for dotCMS falls to a different department with a different budget and mission altogether - typically the IT department. Moving to the cloud can be an efficient solution and reduce dependencies, delays and risk compared to operating the system in a “cross departmental” fashion where one department is at the “mercy” of another.
  8. Software Integration Platform (SIP)
    DotCMS has a complete range of API’s and integration capabilities. Companies whose hub of business and communication is online can use dotCMS at the center of a Software Integration Platform that connects other on-the-cloud systems like e- commerce, payment processing, CDN’s and popular CRM systems.
  9. Cost Management Strategy
    With traditional IT models, organizations spend money upfront on the infrastructure for any new technology. Many organizations are reluctant to be locked into capital investment commitments in this manner. Cloud computing, much like renting a car or buying electricity, requires no infrastructure or equipment costs. Many businesses find that moving systems to the cloud can ease cash flow constraints and provide financial advantages. For some, moving to cloud operations allows the organization to convert capital expenditures to operating expenditures and can be part of an overall cost management strategy.
  10. Cost Control and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
    One advantage of cloud computing is that you only pay for what you use: bandwidth, storage, computing power, etc. Additionally, dotCMS annual subscriptions provide predictable costs, services, and support. Choosing dotCMS Cloud Support keeps your software up-to-date with predictable upgrades, patches, and premium support.

    Moving a dotCMS implementation to the Cloud may not lower costs by itself, yet the TCO (total cost of operation/ ownership) is often reduced significantly. Many dotCMS customers can eliminate the need of one or sometimes more System Administrators by moving to the cloud with dotCMS Cloud Support. We can help you with calculating the TCO of a new or current set-up compared to a proposed future state on the cloud with your desired support option. (Advanced implementations can even consider hybrid configurations where development and testing remain in-house and authoring and publishing are on the cloud - many options are possible with dotCMS Enterprise). Call us to help configure or optimize your dotCMS implementation.
Will Ezell
Chief Technology Officer
June 08, 2014

Filed Under:

cloud

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