Alibaba is one of the world’s biggest e-commerce companies providing solutions and products that are easily accessible to the masses.
Alibaba Cloud is the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, which raked in a revenue of USD3.68 billion in 2019 alone—an 84% increase from 2018.
Due to COVID-19, they’re offering SMEs all around the world a discounted cloud package with the Alibaba Cloud Anti COVID-19 SME Enablement Program for a variety of business needs.
Dictionary Time: An online business hosts sites on a standard physical server, whereas a cloud business uses cloud servers for hosting, meaning there’s less chance of the site going down.
The Anti COVID-19 SME Enablement Program has solutions designed to make it as easy as possible for entrepreneurs to move their businesses to the cloud. The Alibaba Cloud Global SME Enablement Program aims to provide much needed and timely relief to SMEs so they can rapidly respond to the current crisis while speeding up their digital transformation and emerging from the current pandemic stronger and more resilient.
Here are some benefits you can get by utilising Alibaba Cloud’s solution for your business.
1. Save On Hardware Costs
If you’re thinking of reaching out to a wider audience, you can’t settle with a free hosting site. That would result in slow loading times and you could lose potential customers.
So you’ll need a server to host your site and to keep traffic smooth and quick. But that would mean purchasing hardware and finding a space to run and store the hardware.
When everything is up in the cloud, there’s no need for you to spend money purchasing hardware and this is where Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) comes in.
Alibaba Cloud’s ECS can be easily scaled-up or scaled-down, depending on your business needs and you are charged for what you use.
2. Protect And Manage Your Database
Security-wise, Alibaba Cloud has safeguards such as the Object Storage Service (OSS) which stores and backs up your data (which is encrypted) in the cloud. The OSS itself will also have multiple backups for data redundancy so your data will be there when you need it.
Dictionary Time: Redundancy in this instance means the data is stored in different places. If the first backup fails, you have the second backup to rely on.
They also provide a database management system via ApsaraDB MySQL. If you have a host of items that you’re selling, you can use the database to manage your inventory. It has also received over 10 security certificates and utilises a transparent data encryption tool.
CloudDBA (included in the package) can also be used to monitor the performance of your site. It can see when your customers are most active and you can upgrade your server performance accordingly so there will be no downtime or loss of sales due to 404 errors.
The database also touts a 99.99% availability using a primary/secondary architecture. In simple terms, if the primary fails, the secondary instance takes over. The data is also stored in different zones along with redundant power supplies and networks to ensure that your site will not go down.
3. Get A Mail Service With A Large Storage And Attachment Size
On the standard Alibaba Mail package, you have access to a 100GB of mailbox storage with 5GB of personal storage.
When sending attachments online, you can also send attachments as large as 1GB through this service.
The mail can also handle all your work schedule and meetings, and you can even share the calendar with your contacts. If you wish, you can also design a custom UI for the service, such as adding your company logo on the top.
4. Help Secure Your Very Own Domain Name
Alibaba Cloud offers two services for domain names, one with .COM domains and one with .XYZ domains.
Alternatively, Alibaba Cloud is also offering 3 services to keep your domain safe from being taken over or having your information disclosed.
As Alibaba Cloud understands that domain names are getting scarce, they can also prevent your domain from being transferred to another account or have your information modified without your authorisation.
5. Reach Out To Your Customers Worldwide
Just like the name suggests, Alibaba Cloud SMS can send messages on your behalf to your customers all around the world. But it is not limited to just messages, as it can send notifications and verification codes as well.
Currently, the service covers over 200 countries and regions. Using this service, you will not have to personally message each client.
Tried And Tested
They’ve hosted 11.11 sales through Alibaba Cloud and the service has been working flawlessly throughout the years. So when it comes to cloud solutions, they want to assure you that their servers can handle extremely large numbers of shoppers even during peak hours.
However, Alibaba Cloud’s solutions are not only for businesses. As detailed in their whitepaper, they have developed technological solutions for multiple sectors such as education, healthcare, and DevOps.
On April 23, Alibaba Cloud hosted an online conference that talked about a variety of new technology and solutions created by Alibaba for AI, Big Data, and Cloud Computing to name a few.
You can also tune in to the online conference by clicking here. You will have to register, but the conference is free for anyone to view.
- Find out more about the Alibaba Cloud Anti COVID-19 SME Enablement Program here.
- Read the Alibaba Cloud Whitepaper here.
- Catch the online conference here.
Featured Image Credit: freepik-macrovector
