As organizations increasingly look to the cloud to handle everything from collaboration to storage to their most critical and computationally intensive tasks, there are a number of factors to consider when selecting a cloud provider.
Security
In making the choice to migrate systems to the cloud, security is usually cited as the chief concern. A cloud provider must have measures in place to ensure that data can only be accessed by those with the appropriate credentials. Both electronic security (e.g., firewalls, anti-virus software, digital encryption) and physical security (e.g., guards, protected facilities with secure entries) should be deployed to ensure that information stored on the cloud remains protected. The AIR Cloud meets or exceeds all of the industry best practices for system security, and AIR is fully committed to ensuring your data remains secure.
Scalability
A key promise of the cloud is its ability to adjust according to your needs. A cloud provider should be able to dynamically allocate additional resources to provide your organization with the resources it requires. If you need to expand your cloud environment to better support your catastrophe modeling capabilities, AIR can add compute resources or storage capacity within 24 hours.
Ease of Use
For your organization to move smoothly and seamlessly to the cloud, using the software or services must be straightforward. It is incumbent upon the cloud provider to ensure a good user experience; files should be easily moved to and from the cloud, and cloud-based software should be easy to navigate. Touchstone® on the AIR Cloud is identical to the version installed on-premises and an intuitive file transfer interface enables simplified data migration.
Reliability
As the cloud and its hosted software become critical to your everyday operations, dependability becomes vital. You should expect cloud providers to offer Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee at least 99.5% uptime to minimize chances of outages and connectivity issues that could inhibit access to critical insight. AIR guarantees uptime of 99.85% and will work with your schedule for maintenance and upgrades.
Maintenance-Free
Transitioning to a cloud-based environment can lower operational costs by reducing or eliminating the need for infrastructure around housing and servicing the hardware and software necessary in a traditional system. With a cloud solution, like the AIR Cloud, a trusted partner assumes the responsibility of keeping the systems and software up to date, freeing up your IT resources for greater focus on other strategic projects.
The AIR Cloud provides a turnkey solution to handle all of your company's catastrophe modeling needs. It's secure, reliable, and accessible anywhere. Moving your catastrophe modeling environment to the AIR Cloud is a safe, dependable choice that provides all of the functionality of an on-premises installation of Touchstone with none of the hardware, software, or service requirements.
