On Premises or Cloud Computing
There is a lot of hype about cloud computing these days. Many businesses have been “cloud computing” for years, hosting it themselves using Microsoft Terminal Services or Citrix. Today’s version of cloud computing generally means outsourcing a business’ applications and data storage needs. In certain cirumstances this new version of cloud computing makes sense.
For several years we have been proponents of cloud based backup. One of our biggest challenges serving small business, is ensuring backups are being done, done timely, and are moved off-site. With business class cloud backup solutions, for the most part, human intervention is removed. The backups happen automatically each night, an email is sent to appropriate people noting success or failure of the backup, and since the solution is cloud based the backup is off-site regardless if someone is ill or on vacation.
Email is another business solution which might make sense to base in the cloud. Cloud computing mean accessing data across the Internet. Without the Internet your email’s usefulness will be greatly diminished. Since there is a high correlation with the Internet, cloud based email may make sense. One caveat with cloud based email is that there can be latency. If you require shared calendars to be updated immediately, or emails to be delivered within seconds to multiple recipients, this can be problematic.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software might also be a good application for cloud computing. Many salespeople are away from the office, and consequently they would need Internet access to access the most recent activity with customer records. Again because of the dependence on Internet for use of this system, it is a candidate for cloud computing.
There are many system which have a valid case for being outsourced. In my Friday blog post we will discuss systems which may deserve more consideration before outsourcing.
To learn more about our cloud computing IT services, reach out to our team of technology consultants at Beyond IT Advisors.