Posts
Cloud Services – is it the next step in technology or is it
just outsourcing your IT needs?
What a great question!
I hear it a lot from both my prospects and customers. In years past, companies have begun to allow
3rd party companies host their data servers in remote locations, on
the premise it provides better disaster recovery and better security than housing on-site. Does it really? Let’s discuss…
While the practice of keeping your equipment in a remote
location (commonly referred to as “Co-Location services) has been around for
some time, the actual benefit is up in the air.
Yes, co-location does provide some added piece of mind. Typically “Co-Lo” facilities come with
emergency power supplies, diesel generators, battery backup, 24 hour security, etc. Sounds good, and you can probably save some
cap-ex costs by not having to build the power grid yourself. Throw in the added value of saving the real
estate costs of housing it yourself and co-location seems like a reasonable way to go.
 |
| Cloud Computing comes with many advantages |
With cloud services, you get all the benefits of
co-location, plus a lot more. No longer
are you using your own servers, paying your own maintenance fees, or paying the
salary of the IT guy to visit the co-lo site every time you need to change some
hardware. Using cloud services gives your company
the benefit of state of the art, enterprise grade equipment with 24x7x365
on-site monitoring. With the right
provider, your data is automatically backed up at multiple data centers across the
country, providing true disaster recovery protection. If you live in Boston, your data could be
backed up in California. It would take quite
a disaster to reach across the United States!
If you need to add hardware, you visit the web portal to the server on
your local PC, make a couple entries on a web page and Voila! You have additional server space within a few
minutes. No longer are you dependent on
waiting for a new server to be built and shipped from your vendor. I’ve seen this take process up to 4 weeks.
After we discuss these facts, the conversations with my clients usually then quickly turn to “But my
IT staff has been with me for years. I don't want to eliminate their jobs. They have families to support. ”
Sure they do. We all
do. Cloud services doesn’t need to reduce
headcount. The use of cloud services simply
changes the focus for your IT staff, allowing them to concentrate on issues
critical to growing your business, rather than maintaining it. By removing the daily chore of monitoring the platform and network, they now have the time needed to create
the new software program your marketing group has requested; they can finish
the bandwidth reports your CFO has been waiting for to evaluate network
costs. There are loads of projects they
can do. Take a quick look at the IT task
schedule at your next staff meeting.
There’s plenty to do…….
The age-old saying “Time is Money” comes back into play and
creates more revenues for your company because the use of cloud services will
add time back into your IT staff’s day.
It may even save you some money too!
If you’re interested in more detailed information on the benefits of
cloud services for your business, please reach out to me via email dave@davehanron.com or via Twitter
@DaveHanron. I can also tell you how you
can get a free 30 day no-risk trial in the “Cloud”.
If anyone has some other benefits of “cloud services” I’d
enjoying hearing about your personal experiences……
