Raleigh Cloud Consultants Pi

What is cloud computing and why it should matter to you.

Cloud computing is the delivery of IT resources—like servers, storage, databases, networking, and software—over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. Instead of buying and maintaining hardware, you rent exactly what you need from a provider that runs and updates the infrastructure for you.

For small businesses, the big wins are availability, redundancy, and cost. Leading cloud platforms spread your apps and data across multiple data centers, so if one server—or even an entire facility—goes down, your site stays up through built-in failover and automated backups. That resilience used to require expensive duplicate hardware; in the cloud it’s built in. And because you’re shifting from large capital purchases (CapEx) to predictable operating expenses (OpEx), you avoid big upfront investments and only pay for what you use. Add in fast scalability for busy seasons, enterprise-grade security and updates managed for you, and anywhere access for your team, and the cloud lets a small business punch well above its weight while staying focused on customers—not servers.

The Cloud is safe and secure.

The cloud has security baked in at multiple layers. You can require multi-factor authentication (MFA) for every admin and user, enforce least-privilege access with fine-grained roles, and get continuous monitoring and audit logs by default. Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest, and services like AWS Key Management Service (KMS) let you control encryption keys—often backed by hardware security modules. On AWS, you don’t log into servers with weak passwords; you use key pairs (or Session Manager) to establish secure, auditable access, and you can rotate or revoke those keys instantly. With 24/7 patching, DDoS protections, WAFs, and automated backups across multiple availability zones, a well-configured cloud environment can be—and often is—more secure than legacy on-site hardware that’s hard to patch, monitor, and staff continuously.

Make the conversion to the Cloud with ease

Simply begin with an inventory of apps and data. Be prepared to enforce MFA and least‑privilege access. Develop a budget for a pilot, and have a disaster recovery strategy. Start with low‑risk workloads (static site, backups, email) before touching databases. Make a rollback plan and name one owner for each migration step to keep accountability clear.

Steps

1. Inventory apps, data, users, and integrations.
2. Enable MFA; apply least‑privilege IAM to admins and services.
3. Pick a small pilot (static site/CDN); define success metrics.
4. Create budgets and alerts for the pilot account.
5. Back up and test a restore before any cutover.
6. Write a rollback plan with exact DNS steps.

Key figures

• Pilot timeline: 2–4 weeks.
• Starter RPO/RTO: 24h / 4h.
• Budget alarm: notify at 50%, 80%, 100% of monthly cap.

Prioritize what to move first

Move workloads with low coupling and clear value first: static sites, media assets, and backups. Defer tightly coupled legacy apps and anything lacking tests. Use a simple scoring model (risk, cost impact, complexity) to order the queue and prevent stalled migrations.

Steps

1. Score each workload: risk, complexity, cost impact (1–5).
2. Pick top 1–2 scoring candidates for a pilot.
3. Define cutover and rollback for each candidate.
4. Schedule a post‑mortem to capture improvements.

Key figures

• Target queue: 3–5 workloads.
• Success metric: < 30 min rollback.

Prove ROI with simple KPIs

Tie outcomes to measurable KPIs: load time, uptime, error rate, and monthly cost. For non‑technical leaders, show before/after charts and a short narrative explaining the change. Lock KPIs into a monthly health report to sustain momentum after launch.

Steps

1. Baseline current load time, uptime, errors, cost.
2. Capture after‑migration metrics with the same tools.
3. Explain deltas in one slide with plain language.
4. Publish a monthly health report and share widely.

Key figures

• Page load goal: < 2.5s global median.
• Uptime goal: ≥ 99.9% for web property.