Is your business ready for Cloud Computing

Cloud computing seem to be the buzz words on every small business owners lips when they ask about their future IT infrastructure but to paraphrase my kids "are we there yet?"

“The cloud” is a term that refers to a computer system that shares a business’ information over a set of servers to more efficiently and economically store data.

Among the benefits of going to a cloud-based system are that a company is not tied to a single location and no longer has to worry about backing up and maintaining its data.

In the traditional model of business computing systems, each function of the system is held on a different server — such as email, online stores, phone systems and contact databases.

What the cloud allows you to do is take the computers and applications and share the applications across those computers, which uses the space more effectively and efficiently. If one of the computers dies, not all of your stuff is gone and this allows for room for your data to grow.

And switching to the cloud can save companies thousands of dollars, he said. The savings come from not having to buy software per computer and having to maintain and upgrade specific computers to handle the software requirements. It is a rental rather than a buy model.

One of the drawbacks is that the cost of a computer system goes from being a capital cost, namely the investment in hardware, software and servers, to being an operating expense as it changes to a monthly charge to access the cloud.

For some small businesses, income is not consistent from month to month, in cases like that, when a company gets a large project and uses the money from that to expand its network, the cloud might not be the right solution or they tend to use IT equipment to it maximum life which makes buying cheaper in the long run.

While moving to the cloud may save business owners the headache of having to back up their data, it’s important, he said, to make sure that the cloud provider is reliable.

The most important issue in Australia for Small Business is connectivity & reliability. You connection to the internet becomes extremely important both in speed, & bandwidth. You need consistent high speeds to make the transactions seemless to the user & the ability to transfer data in greater quantities at cheap rates to make the cloud worthwhile.

The growth of the data speeds & great data inclusions are happening on the back of the NBN build & increasing choice at the retail level but the best way to determine whether moving to a cloud-based system is feasible to discuss it with an IT consultant or trusted IT Adviser.

We of course recommend Computer Troubleshooters as your trusted IT Adviser.