Monday Musings: Testing the (cloudy) waters

Now you know what Cloud Computing is, you may be thinking you want to try it out for yourself and your business, but where do you start?  How far do you commit yourself?  Is it secure?  Will it work for me?  When you take on a new employee for example, you don’t give them a three-year contract and the keys to the company Aston Martin (we can all dream) from day one.  You’ll start them out on a three-month contract to make sure they’re a good fit for your business.  It should be the same with the Cloud (and indeed with all new technology); you can see the benefits, but it’s wise to dip a toe in the water first to make sure it suits you first.

Consider your email – the cost of running your own email server can be prohibitively expensive for many small businesses, yet using free email services live Hotmail and Gmail can make your business appear unprofessional.  Using an email service like Hosted Exchange is a great way to get an enterprise-level solution for bargain-basement prices, all without sacrificing the quality of service you receive.  Cloud solutions like Hosted Exchange scale with your business, going from one-man bands to businesses with thousands of users and with no long contracts and end-of-month billing, you really do only pay for what you use.

What shouldn’t hold you back from Cloud Computing is fear of the unknown.  Every innovation will have a certain amount of hesitation associated with it, but Cloud Computing is based on proven technologies – all that has changed is the scale.  The Cloud is not a fad, it is most definitely here to stay.  There will be circumstances where the Cloud is not the answer, but don’t worry – we have solutions for you too.

See you next Monday!