How Cloud Services Reduce Time-to-Market
Acting to reduce time-to-market is essential for businesses. Evidence shows that the first entrant occupies up to 70% of an emerging market niche, while the second-to-market player can expect only 20%. When it comes to startups, this means that the entire business depends on the speed of getting the product to market.
Those who get to market quickly get many advantages:
- Higher overall profits and a higher return on investment
- Faster break-even of development investments and lower financial risk
- Longer product life cycle
- Premium prices can be charged early in the life cycle
- The competitive advantage when you reduce time-to-market
What does cloud technology have to do with it? This article explains how they can help startups to reduce time-to-market at every stage of a new product launch. Cloud services simplify all product design and development phases, from purchasing and installing hardware to scaling resources to meet user needs. Bonus: cloud solutions work on a pay-as-you-go basis, so long-term investments don't become a burden.
Let's get to the details.
#1 with Cloud Services You Get Ready-to-Go Infrastructure
One of the key benefits of cloud technology is its ability to reduce time-to-market by streamlining the process of procuring and installing hardware. In the past, companies had to spend a lot of time and money buying servers and equipment and installing them in data centers that met all the required security and legal standards. This time-consuming and risky process often led to delays due to logistical and legal issues.
With cloud technologies, startups can bypass all these steps and access ready-to-use equipment that complies with regulatory requirements and is located in reliable data centers.
No need to spend a budget and time on hardware purchases
When developing MVP, buying and installing hardware is a prohibitive luxury you can avoid. Yet, computing power is required to bring a new product to market. With cloud providers, you get the resources you need in minutes:
- Virtual instances and bare-metal servers. Deploy projects faster with ready-made virtual instance images, or use the computing resources of physical servers to the full extent.
- Cloud locations around the world. Choose a cloud provider with Points-of-Presence in the regions you need, and deploy instances in optimal locations worldwide.
- Fast deployment. With cloud providers, you don't need to buy advanced hardware and deploy it yourself. Many of them not only do it for you, but also give you access to hardware in minutes.
"At Gcore, we try to make it as easy as possible for startups to get started. With us, you can access advanced hardware in over 20 locations worldwide in reliable data centers within 15 minutes.
Instead of waiting for hardware to be delivered and configured, cloud environments can be set up with the click of a button, so teams can get to market faster,” comments Seva Vayner, Director of Edge Cloud at Gcore.
Reliable data centers and international security standards compliance
It's essential to know in which countries your data is processed and what laws apply to it: privacy, localization, and sovereignty. If you don't comply with these laws, local authorities may prohibit you from certain activities. For example, they may forbid you from processing personal data on servers—you can't even upload a customer's card to the cloud if it doesn't meet the standard for storing personal data. This can lead to fines, failure to pass audits, and legal consequences for businesses.
The challenge is that GDPR compliance is difficult to achieve, and 79% of organizations fail to meet the requirements. Cloud providers greatly simplify this task for startups, which can choose a provider that already complies with GDPR, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, or any other requirements.
For companies that need to meet compliance and regulatory requirements before going to market, addressing these challenges quickly and easily accelerates development and deployment and results in stronger, more resilient product offerings.
Free budget for development and hiring
With cloud technology, you no longer need to invest in buying expensive hardware. While companies used to purchase and install servers to develop their products, cloud providers now offer a convenient and cost-effective solution: renting servers on a pay-as-you-go basis. This means that startups only pay for what they consume, which allows them to save on hardware costs and use the freed-up budget for product development and hiring staff.
#2 Cloud Technologies Accelerate Product Development
Cloud services provide startups with faster access to advanced technologies, simplified IT infrastructure management, and improved collaboration between team members.
Cloud-based applications are easier to configure, change and maintain
The flexibility of cloud-based applications allows for faster updates and new product releases. Reasons for this include:
- Cloud instant access to computing power allows teams to run CI/CD tasks simultaneously.
- Ready images enable you to deploy projects faster with ready virtual machine images.
- Snapshots of virtual machines make it possible to roll them back to their original state when needed quickly.
- Management via API and Terraform helps to automate your deployments and integrate cloud services be a native part of your system.
All these make it possible to deploy new releases and updates to the market faster, giving startups a competitive advantage. Choosing a cloud provider whose products meet your needs is all that is required.
Improved collaboration removes barriers to go-to-market campaigns
Improved collaboration has removed roadblocks to successful go-to-market campaigns. Thanks to cloud services, teams can now easily collaborate from different locations. For example, you can operate and scale virtual infrastructures with colleagues using single access, shared accounts, and security groups. This makes it easier and faster for them to innovate and enter new markets.
#3 with Cloud Services You Get Automatic Scalability & Application Reliability
Startups must be prepared for a surge in user base, which requires automated resource scaling. Cloud and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) services also provide this capability.
Easier process automation frees up staff for revenue-generating activities
Managed Kubernetes is a crucial benefit of cloud providers, allowing users to transform an old-fashioned monolithic approach into a microservice architecture. This PaaS service enables automatic load balancing, rapid scaling of resources, and continuous health monitoring of nodes. If necessary, Managed Kubernetes automatically updates and restarts them.
It provides businesses with a controlled and flexible solution for launching products, especially useful when bringing MVPs to market and the load grows. For example, if the application proves popular with users, Kubernetes automatically scales resources according to the load, allowing a full-fledged product to be released faster.
Data Safety & Advanced Security Options
Analysts at Gcore, a secure edge and cloud platform, reported the frequency and volume of DDoS attacks in 2022 nearly doubled from 2021. The average attack power has grown from 150-300 Gbps to 500-700 Gbps. Attacks affected ordinary users and businesses in any industry – fintech, gaming, e-commerce, and others.
According to analysts, assaults will become more widespread in 2023 as IoT and 5G devices expand exponentially. Each of these can be added to a botnet. More linked devices suggest more worldwide attacks. Given that Internet-connected gadgets are worldwide, anti-attack measures should be too. The solution must be simple, effective, and inexpensive.
“One must take precautions by implementing a system that monitors all incoming data for signs of an attack and blocks those requests. Ensure your safety from potential dangers by choosing the best solution. If assaults happen at the application layer, protecting the transport layer won’t do much,” comments Andrew Slastenov, Head of Web Security at Gcore.
He adds: “For instance, In Gcore, we have two types of protection. Server Protection protects servers from all DDoS attacks, including channel overflow, amplification attacks, UDP, ICMP, SYN Flood, and others. Web Protection covers websites, apps, and APIs from L3–L7 attacks of all kinds. Both systems can be connected in minutes and prevent risks to your startup. Gcore protection servers based on high-performance 3rd generation Intel® Xeon® Scala-ble processors. ”
Nuno
I'm a filmmaker with extensive training in multiple sectors of content creation whose films have been shown all over the world. I have also served as a speaker and jury member in multiple events. Nonetheless, in recent years, I became extremely disappointed with the course of the art world in general, and as consequence, I've developed an interest in topics I believed would become crucial for the future, namely, cybersecurity, self-education, web design, and investing in various assets, such as cryptocurrencies. All those events have driven me to launch RushRadar.