Should one move to the Cloud?
An important decision to make is if one wants to host their business operations ‘in-house’ or on ‘the Cloud.’ Selecting the right server solution is critical. The choice one makes depends on their information technology (IT) resources and business goals. While it may sound simple to run the business in the Cloud or on a local server, there are three important things to consider:
Expense
In-house servers require a significant upfront investment in hardware and IT services for installation and implementation. A dedicated server is a physical computer that is purchased and installed at a particular location just for the company’s use. One may think of it as a house—one owns it, does not share it with anyone, and is responsible for its maintenance. Similar to a house, the initial cost of a physical server is higher, but once purchased, it belongs to the buyer. The server can then be expanded, modified, and managed to match the needs of the business. The downside is one is also responsible for the server’s maintenance. In addition, accessing data from outside one’s network must be done through remote software.
On the other hand, a Cloud solution does not require any upfront, onsite hardware expenses; however, the server requires business owners to pay an ongoing monthly fee to host their data.
A Cloud server is a shared virtual network environment that is managed by a hosting provider. It can be compared to living in an apartment complex—one does not have the keys to another’s unit (in this case data), but shares the building with other residents (different companies). The landlord can be seen as the hosting provider, and one is under contract to lease the space that houses their data.
There are many advantages of a Cloud-based server.
- Data can be accessed from anywhere through a smart device;
- The lessee (one who rents the server space) is not responsible for any updates or IT support;
- Initial costs are less than purchasing a physical server; and
- If anything bad happens to one’s business, their data will be safe.
The downside is one has restricted control over their data bank; the server must be shared with other people and data security is not under their control.
