Cloud Computing Services
What is the cloud?
Cloud computing covers a massive range of technologies but at it's most basic level it means offloading IT functions and services that you would have traditionally had on servers in your building off to servers hosted in large data centres run by other companies.
A great example of this is Google Apps which allows you to share and collaborate on documents without having to run and maintain an expensive server on your premises.
Benefits of using the Cloud
- Lower initial investment costs
- Lower running costs
- Less reliance on specialist IT staff
- Potentially better security
- Lower risk of data loss
- Greatly reduces the impact of a disaster at your premises.
- Enables staff to be productive wherever they are
It’s not all gravy though!
Whilst we're great fans of cloud systems here at Technology Systems it's very important to remember that there are limitation and potential pitfalls that must be considered when selecting cloud over traditional IT:
- You business suddenly becomes far more reliant on being connected at all times, a loss of broadband can become very costly
- You loose some of the flexibility that having your own servers provides
- Broadband speed is critical, if your business is on the end of a long, low quality line for instance Cloud may not be the best choice
- Choice of provider is very important, will they still be around in 5 years and are they likely to make changes to your service that adversely affect you?
At Technology Systems we have the experience and expertise to be able to advise you on the suitability of Cloud for your business. We also have the technical know how to be able to help reduce the risk of downtime with measures such as multiple broadband connections with intelligent fail-over.