As companies work to achieve the benefits of the cloud, they’ve come to realize that cloud migrations are complex and leveraging cloud capabilities can be challenging. Some are now looking at industry cloud to help shortcut the transition and propel them to cloud success.

Clouds Customized for Your Industry

Public cloud by default is a generic service, a blank slate where you connect the many on-demand capabilities to meet your specific business and industry needs. Industry cloud provides predefined, preconfigured cloud infrastructure designed to meet the specific needs of specific industries. This typically includes meeting performance and compliance requirements, along with specific applications to provide industry services.

The industry cloud offerings to date are somewhat limited, with just a few industries available, but more are expected to be developed.

Benefits of Industry Cloud

The big benefit of industry cloud is the amount of work they are expected to save businesses in terms of designing their cloud environments and the transitions to them. In addition, they address one of the biggest concerns of any cloud project: security. An industry cloud provides standardized configurations to ensure secure access at the level required by the industry.

Drawbacks of Industry Cloud

Because industry cloud is a fairly new idea, the biggest drawback may simply be lack of availability. Companies that like the idea of a preconfigured environment may have to wait a while for appropriate offerings to be developed and miss out on all the other cloud benefits in the interim.

Another issue with industry cloud is that it limits the amount of customization businesses can do. While industry cloud provides the industry standard capabilities, businesses’ unique processes are what differentiate them from their competitors. In addition, new industry clouds may have more limited capabilities than general purpose cloud environments.

Finally, all cloud brings the risk of vendor lock-in. Industry cloud may increase that risk, because the dependency isn’t simply for infrastructure but an entire way of addressing operational needs.

Selecting a cloud provider and designing cloud infrastructure depends on individual business needs. Industry clouds may offer some businesses an easier transition to the cloud, but choosing to use one requires a full assessment of your cloud strategy. Prescient Solutions offers comprehensive cloud services to businesses in Chicago and Schaumburg. Our team helps businesses evaluate their cloud needs, design and implement their cloud environments, and monitor and manage their production clouds. Contact us to learn more about choosing the cloud infrastructure that will best support your business now and in the future.