These days the buzzword is “The Cloud” but what does it really mean?
For the technical term of Cloud Computing, you might want to refer to the Wikipedia definition. In our experience, micro to small-businesses understand Cloud Computing to be browser based applications, whereas Small to Medium Sized businesses understand Cloud Computing to be shared servers hosted and typically managed by an external party and accessible via either The Internet or direct communication.
The important consideration when exploring the Cloud is what your needs are. In other words:
What are you trying to achieve?
Typical needs include:
- Remote Access to Your business systems
- Increased Reliability
- Increased Performance
- Reduced Cost of Operation
- Reduced Risks in the event of a Disaster
Our recommendation is to thoroughly understand your desired outcomes exploring the benefits and pitfalls. Some of the issues of hosted solutions may include:
- Limited capability of interfacing to 3rd party applications
- Restriction in generating your own report layouts
- Susceptible in the event of an Internet connection issue
- Risks in vendor’s viability
- Impaired performance
