Let’s talk about THE CLOUD. I won’t bore you with details about security risks or pros v. cons. Those types of details muddy the real value of The Cloud, which is keeping up with cutting-edge IT without a huge IT budget. This is especially significant for small businesses.
Maybe you’ve already been wondering, should we move our business to The Cloud? and what type of Cloud? Cloud data storage or Cloud computing? What’s the difference? Or, maybe you’re asking, What is The Cloud anyway? Isn’t it something for large companies?
In a previous post, we explained what cloud computing is. Simply put, it is the offsite storage of physical servers and their data (and the software applications that run on them). The primary benefit is pretty straight forward: A company or service pays for all the hardware and support costs needed to store your digital footprint. And once you move to The Cloud, you can pack up and recycle servers, networking hardware, wiring, and old blinkers from that room everyone is scared to walk into (the server room!)
“But I purchased this hardware for a reason, so why get rid of it?” Because someone told you to buy a server, and you purchased a server. In reality, as a small business, you need to work more efficiently and cost-effectively. Historically, the technology used by big business has been out of reach for SMBs to contend with. Most SMBs have neither the hardware budget nor internal resources to own network infrastructure. The cloud ends all of that. It allows businesses to become competitive with Big Players in any industry.
In simple terms, The Cloud lets your business rent as little infrastructure as needed, and then provides growth incrementally, paying only for what is used. Essentially, The Cloud has become the great equalizer. You can get ahead by implementing the latest software, which is usually an expensive, slow and troublesome undertaking.
Certainly this doesn’t apply to every business or situation – onsite storage is still relevant for some envirnoments. The reason for this blog is to get businesses to ask themselves, are we working as smart as we can? What do we need; where do we need it? Figuring out The Cloud is one way to start to answer that question.