3 Cloud Trends Agencies Need to Know to be Profitable in 2018

As 2018 inches closer, business owners are eyeing the best ways to stay ahead of new technology.  Agency owners can rise to the occasion by heeding predictions from cloud computing experts.

Below, we’ve identified three cloud trends that have our attention. We’ve also paired tips with each to make running your agency more profitable and stress-free in the year ahead.

The Internet Gets Faster, Better, Stronger

Trend: Faster network speeds mean less patience from users than ever

Consumers are already expecting faster connections from network providers.  Every year, new research comes out that talks about how dramatic an effect this can have on preventing bounce sessions and lost transactions.  This trend will continue into 2018 for the simple reason that audiences are connecting faster and faster than ever from their end.

Earlier in 2017, data from FastMetrics confirmed what you’ve probably witnessed happening already.  Average connection speeds in the United States had risen from 14.2 Mbps in 2015 to 18.7 Mbps in 2017, still lagging far behind nations that lead in client-side broadband, such as South Korea, which boasts a whopping average of 28.6 Mbps.  

Agency Tip: Rise to Meet Growing Demand

If you’re not scaling and upgrading to keep pace with the improving network capacity of your audience, you’re falling behind.

Agencies need to be on the forefront of this transition.  Cloud technology allows agencies to scale system resources as visitor own technology improves.  Cloud enables these upgrades without requiring downtime for server upgrades.  Choosing a provider with substantial network infrastructure never hurts either.

Cloud Under Attack

Trend: Cyber attacks continue to escalate with cloud infrastructure in the sites of bad actors

This year was a hotbed of cyber attacks. Between WannaCry ransomware, the CIA Vault 7 hack, and the infamous Equifax data breach, no one is safe from nefarious characters on the web.

Experts predict that 2018 will only bring more attacks. For reasons of politics, finance, and the long-time practice of destruction for destruction’s sake. Private, public, and government sectors will all need to keep pace to prevent cyber attacks.

Agency Tip: Leverage managed security services to implement and offer full security measures

Managed cloud services enable both human and technology-driven security measures. Denial of service attacks are mitigated, further, by choosing infrastructure solutions with significant excess availability.  This makes it extraordinarily difficult for an attacker to deplete resources. Failure to plan ahead leaves your agency with hands tied; drafting a lengthy (and apologetic) note to affected clients.

This makes full-service cloud solutions where managed security come built-in a natural choice.  Choosing a solution with incremental backups enables rapid restoration at any given timestamp. It may seem insignificant now, but you appreciate the ability to restore from various timestamps later. Smart agency owners appreciate the value of a managed cloud professionals most in exactly these types of moments.

What About Extensibility?

Trend: The technology is only heating up

You may have realized this when the last refrigerator you bought came with its own Twitter account.  But if not, consider this: in Apigee’s 2017 State of APIs report, they saw an increase in the number of third-party apps consuming their customer APIs up over 3,000% in just a 3-year span.  

Agency Tip: Get a competitive edge by leveraging a more flexible solution

Cloud services afford designers, developers, and agencies the latest technologies for automating deployments, analytics, and use cases that we can’t even imagine right now.  Deploying in a cutting-edge managed cloud environment today puts your agency in a position to more-easily manage, scale, and impress multiple clients tomorrow.

And, since managed cloud services require less time, effort, and complexity, agencies can free up internal resources to focus on the core business and keeping clients happy.  This gives you more time to sell, do great work, and deliver using the best tech stack available.

Further, cloud-based infrastructure can cut costs at every facet of server management, from network connectivity, DDoS protection, access controls, backups, and load balancing.  Factor in the lower operational costs and using cloud services turns into a no-brainer for any agency that wants 2018 to be its most profitable year ever.

For more information about scaling your digital agency, check out our latest ebook “Building Out Your Digital Agency With Managed Hosting”.