Businesses today store and generate massive amounts of data from which they can derive actionable insights for faster and better decision-making using business intelligence (BI). Because of the variety and complexity of this data, efficient and cost-effective data analytics are required. Cloud data warehouses and cloud BI technologies are becoming more popular to address these issues.
While the Cloud isn’t perfect for everything, it is certainly applicable to everyone somehow. While there are many definitions of Cloud, it is about efficiency, economy, scalability, elasticity, and doing things faster and better.
Role Of Cloud-Based Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence helps provide insights into your company’s past, present, and future. This is accomplished by employing various technologies, methodologies, and practices, ranging from analytics and reporting to data mining and predictive analytics. Business intelligence allows your company to design its business strategy based on factual data by providing an accurate picture of the business at a specific point in time.
The “democratization” of the cloud allows enterprises that have employed business intelligence using it on applications and on a restricted scale to reach a whole new level by combining storage, networking, and tools that can sift through massive data.
Cloud-based Business Intelligence uses technology to transform data into actionable insights, which can be done partially or entirely in the cloud.
Companies can use cloud BI solutions to:
- Remove all hardware-related BI expenses.
- Deploy a BI solution quickly, cost-effectively, and scale it up and down in storage and compute resources.
- Data can be accessed via any web browser or mobile device.
- Ascertain the high availability and fault tolerance of the BI solution.
- Securely share actionable insights with colleagues.
A Guide To Moving Business Intelligence To The Cloud
Business intelligence (BI) infrastructures are frequently overly complex, resulting in high costs and inflexibility. One solution is to utilize cloud computing services to enhance legacy BI systems and applications with cost-effective increased scalability and flexibility.
However, strict privacy, security, availability requirements, and interdependencies with other systems often obstruct BI system migration to cloud environments.
The Advantages Of Cloud-Based Business Intelligence
The following are a few top reasons that businesses should consider cloud-based BI solution:
- Agility/Time To Value
The benefits of increased agility and time to value are the most compelling reasons to migrate to a cloud architecture. In an on-premises environment, businesses must conduct comprehensive solution sizing projects, go through lengthy procurement cycles to purchase expensive hardware, sign Enterprise Agreements to purchase software licensing, and then pay someone to put everything together correctly.
If that weren’t enough, you’d have to upgrade and migrate your solution every three years to keep up with new technologies.
- Lower Total Cost Of Ownership
It’s challenging to compare cloud and on-premises pricing models. The cost of using the cloud is very different. When calculating the total cost of ownership for an on-premises solution, consider licensing, hardware, real estate, electricity, support, security, deployment cost, and depreciation.
Typically, you pay an hourly rate for a predetermined level of performance. Performance levels can be flexed based on usage patterns and can even be paused depending on the tool. Each firm’s equation will be different, but the cloud will almost always come out on top by a small but significant margin.
- Continuous Feedback And Innovations
Microsoft is now in the midst of a product development cycle in which all new product features are pushed to the cloud before being deployed on-premises. On-premises software refreshes are typically done every two years. Every month, new features and capabilities are pushed out to cloud-based products.
Customers can also vote and provide feedback via sites like the Azure Feedback Forums, influencing the product teams’ priorities. This may not appear to be necessary, but it is. The monthly fixes, innovations, and new capabilities add real business value and enable your teams to create impact and cost-effective solutions.
- Security
Every company’s data security is becoming more of a priority, especially among C-suite executives. As a result, cloud providers go to great lengths to stay updated on industry standards and compliance certifications.
A data breach can be disastrous for a business, so the cloud must provide excellent security to avoid becoming a liability in the event of a violation. Because there is only one point of access, single-tenant cloud users gain an extra layer of security. There’s also no chance that their information will be combined with that of another company or accessed by unauthorized and potentially malicious users.
- Flexibility
Having the right tool for the job is critical for success in almost every industry and trade. The Cortana intelligence Suite is a collection of tightly integrated tools that provide unique capabilities for various jobs/requirements your company may face.
Each tool can be quickly deployed and integrated, allowing your team to use the right BI tools for the job without having to set up their on-premises solutions.
- Low Prices
Cloud computing eliminates capital costs for infrastructure, such as servers and storage, which can be a significant investment for businesses. Problems associated with out-of-date hardware, faulty equipment, general maintenance, and constant software upgrades are largely eliminated without physical storage. Furthermore, because of the cloud’s inherent flexibility, businesses can only pay for storage and features that are constantly used.
Cloud-based business analytics combines two of the most effective business tools into one package. When companies need to collect data from various devices and sources at any time and at any location, cloud computing serves as a data warehouse and an ideal platform for delivering business intelligence applications.
Conclusion
Cloud computing is an excellent complement to corporate information solutions because of its scalability and flexibility. Cloud computing serves as a repository for both structured and unstructured data, making it an ideal platform for delivering data to Business Intelligence applications from various devices at any time and from any location. Because of its scale and versatility, the cloud is ideal for Business Intelligence projects.
