The cloud now offers a variety of services:
- MaaS – Mail as a Service
- SaaS – Software as a Service
- IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service
- PaaS – Platform as a Service
- BaaS – Backups as a Service
All of these are great, but what is right for you as a business or consumer? While many find the cloud a great solution for startup businesses the costs slowly ramp up as the business grows. Think of Cloud Services in the terms renting an apartment. You never own that apartment, but you certainly are paying someone’s mortgage who gets the benefit of the tax write off?..certainly not you. So what is the best solution? Well first let’s start with the need for high speed internet in order to connect to your services. Without high speed internet stability the cloud is useless. So if you do not have high speed internet available then your choice is to keep all of the systems internal to the facility.
Say now you have a high speed internet. The next question is what should I run from the cloud? This answer is difficult depending on what type of business you are running. If you are in the medical field then having your server offsite is not an option as X-Rays are very high bandwidth and speed oriented in order for Doctors to get the information that they are looking for in a timely manner versus the cost of the internet bandwidth would not be feasible unless you were a very very large facility with an unlimited capital to throw towards IT. In the medical case it is best to be your own cloud provider by using virtualization software that grows with you and your business and you OWN it after all is said and done. Virtualization software is free until you reach a certain point from a memory and cpu perspective and then you purchase additional licenses to license your cpu’s. Virtualization is an excellent candidate for new startups as it reduces costs and it is very easy to deploy and restore (which presents and excellent cheap and cost effective way for Disaster Recovery).
The best way to determine if you are a good candidate for cloud services is to have a local NC Network Solutions assess your systems and your bandwidth and come up with the best plan financially while keeping in mind potential future growth.
