Despite what many cloud services vendors will say, going cloud is not always the answer to your computing needs…
All vendors will tout “reduced I.T. overheads and licensing costs” and “no more worries about backups and in-house file servers”. They play on the “you will have no more responsibility” for your I.T. infrastructure and often hail “cloud computing” as the holy grail and the future of business I.T.
What they won’t tell you about are the downsides and potential extra expenses of “going cloud” for your file storage or computing needs.
Sure, there are potential up-front savings – though what are you really committing your business to?
When do these up-front savings run out and become a loss?
Businesses managers and owners need to ask a lot of questions such as:
- do I really understand what cloud services are being offered?
- what do I really need opposed to what I am being offered?
- when are these “potential cost savings” going to actualise?
- when will these “savings” become a loss?
- are there requirements not being met such as having a super fast Internet connection?
- will I need to relocate / upgrade my Internet connection as my computing requirements increase?
- will the new rent and cost of fibre Internet access wipe out the “cost savings on I.T. maintenance”?
- will “going cloud” actually increase business productivity or reduce productivity?
- can my staff and I put up with the often patchy and slow response from terminal or web based cloud services?
- what happens to my business if the Internet goes down and we can’t access our data or “desktops in the cloud”? How long will it be before my business starts losing money?
- what will happen if my cloud provider has technical issues or the quality of the service degrades?
- who will have access to all my business data?
- what is the cost of migrating back away from the cloud or to another provider if I am not happy with my current cloud provider?
Every business is different and you should always get an independent analysis of your situation before signing up to any “cloud” services.
If you are considering moving your business I.T. to “the cloud” Cyanweb can help you evaluate your needs, assess the real world financial impact and help identify any pitfalls that may arise.