How the cloud facilitates SMEs and start-ups

The advantages offered by the cloud have been availed of by all business sectors and companies. One segment that, like others, can benefit from the unrivalled boost offered by cloud computing solutions is e-commerce. For an SME or a start-up just about to spread its wings, a versatile and flexible platform is essential as is its scalability. There are many plus factors for transitioning your e-commence platform to the cloud, both for security and resource scalability reasons as well as the guaranteed speeds. In fact, many businesses still find it difficult to source sufficient resources to ensure redundancy and backup functionalities, especially in those periods of the year when traffic demand peaks. This is when the service offered by a cloud provider comes into its own.

Take for example the SaaS (Software as a Service) models, where merging a CMS platform with a strong cloud provider allows a business to manage digital stores in an optimal manner, cut costs and focus on the customer experience, all while monitoring growth. A content management system on its own is not enough as it should be installed on an infrastructure that ensures users an optimal experience. Alongside customisation, business continuity must be guaranteed 24/7 with the reassurance that your data is always there with regular backups to counter any possible crises.

Many cloud solutions offer various functionalities and technologies to simplify the development of an e-commerce business so that anyone can open an online store, from development of the website to installations and support. Take for example WooCommerce, a plug-in invented by WordPress that allows you to set up an online store from scratch or transform an existing portal into a more comprehensive e-commerce initiative. Installation is easy and the plug-in sends intelligent notifications, such as the emails that are automatically sent to the administrator and customers to update them on the status of their orders, so that customers experience that priceless feeling of that they are being looked after in every single purchase.

Magento, a comprehensive and commonly used tool, also deserves mention. It has components for marketing, customer management and all related activities, such as, for example, definition of the site map, settings for exporting or importing and for verifying and tracking orders. This e-commerce platform has thousands of solutions and a lively community, and is ready to meet the needs of users pinning their hopes on an international e-commerce project.

An exciting vendor is Jelastic Cloud, which is based on an infrastructure that scales and is organised in containers (CaaS), allowing it to distribute resources in a few minutes and to adapt their use through dockers that scale both vertically and horizontally. One of its main advantages is its automation, which means that monitoring the infrastructure is simple. It facilitates various types of computational uses: from all the power necessary during peaks to lower consumption when running normally. This pushes the total costs of the architecture right down as you no longer pay for a set amount of only partially utilised resources, meaning you only use the resources you actually need, as well as having a completely virtualised infrastructure.