A hot topic at the moment, Cloud technology provides IT resources (file share, email, print server) on a rental basis and is charged based on the levels of resources consumed and the amount of users. To date Microsoft is the main provider of Cloud technology with their Office 365 offering, but there are others on the market like Amazon, Google Apps & Drop Box that all provide different types of Cloud services.
With any new technology, it is very difficult to be objective because you are bombarded with extreme marketing by the providers on one side and, sometimes misguided, opinion on the other. As IT service providers, it is our job to be as objective as possible when recommending these new technologies to our clients because we want to suit their short terms needs, but also their long term requirements. Below are questions we get asked by clients over and over again when they are trying to evaluate whether or not to go with Cloud technology:
Is it much cheaper than an onsite server solution?
That really depends on the size of organisation:
>5 User Sites – If this is your first server and you have simple file, print and email requirements then Cloud really is a good-value option. Similarly, if you have an old server that is nearing end-of- life transferring to cloud is a good value option. However, if you have recently invested in a new server you would be best advised to hold off for a couple of years until your server needs upgrading.
>20 User Sites – Yes and No. If you move all your email/file/print functionality to the Cloud, the long term costs can be expensive because each service is priced on a per user, per month basis. However, we have found that a combination option is actually much better value i.e putting the file/print functionality onto a low cost/low grade server and just migrating the email service to the cloud.
<20 User Sites – This really depends on the type of business you are in. For some organisatons of this size the costs can be quite prohibitive. However, there seems to be more of an uptake in the Finance industry where the cost of downtime is factored in.
Is it easy to use?
Again, that depends on which services you go for. We have found that the hosted email is popular with all users, mostly because it can be configured to work exactly like Outlook email. However, some users, particularly older users, find the file share services a bit cumbersome.
Is it reliable?
Microsoft guarantees 99.9% uptime for their Cloud services. Certainly, we have found the support to be fantastic. However, organisations need to ensure that their own internet service is reliable because that can also fail and affect Cloud services. We recommend that organisations consider a back-up, secondary internet line to protect themselves against internet failure.
Is it secure?
From our experience, we have found Cloud technology to be secure. To date none of our clients have reported any infiltrations. According to Microsoft, antivirus signatures are kept up to date, and security measures are applied. The email Online uses Forefront Online Protection to protect mail messages from malware, and it uses anti-spam filtering and antivirus with multiple virus engines. Microsoft also monitors the systems continuously for suspicious activity and has a robust incident response protocol in place.
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