For many years, the computers attached to a local area network in most office buildings got connected to a server. In a nutshell, it’s a powerful machine that doesn’t do much aside from provide file storage for workstation PCs. Many of today’s businesses still use in-house servers, but their use is declining.
Savvy company bosses realize the potential that cloud storage offers over in-house servers. It’s no secret that saving your data online is a better bet for many of today’s businesses. So, what are the reasons for ditching your server and joining the 21st-century cloud revolution? Let me explain:
Security
The thing about keeping a server online 24/7 in your office building is that it poses a great security risk. If your building doesn’t have good access controls, unauthorized persons will find it easy to access your data.
That’s bad news for any business, and it’s even worse if you deal with data of a sensitive nature! The good news is that you don’t have to worry about such issues when you choose a cloud computing provider. State-of-the-art technology gets used. And it ensures only authorized personnel have physical access to your server.
Technology also plays a part in keeping your data safe too. Connections to your cloud storage locations are all encrypted. That way, no-one can pry on any information sent or received from them. Cloud storage vendors invest millions to keep your data secure.
Redundancy
Let’s say that an incident like a fire occurs at your office. If your building is gutted, the chances are high that your server hardware will be destroyed too. Sure, you might have made a backup of your data recently. But, what happens if you need to use specific software or hardware to restore that data?
As you can imagine, it could be a catastrophe if you’ve got no way of rebuilding your server to its original specification. Another scenario is data loss. Computer hard drives don’t last forever! If your server’s hard drive fails, what guarantees have you got that you can get your data back?
One of the biggest selling points about cloud computing is that frequent backups get made to “standby” servers. So, if something happens to your original cloud server, the backup ones will take over and ensure there’s no data loss.
Another advantage of cloud storage is version control. Let’s say that you make a change to a file by mistake. How can you restore the last “good” version of the file if you only do a daily backup? Pretty much all cloud storage vendors offer version control.
That means if you make a mistake, you can restore the previous version of the file without anyone being the wiser!
Cost
Last, but not least, there is the price advantage that cloud computing offers. When you invest in servers that live in your office building, you have to pay for their maintenance and upkeep. That means if something goes wrong with them, call-out fees could cost your business a lot of money!
The low cost of cloud computing means that you don’t have to worry about such fees. The vendor takes care of the maintenance, and all you do is pay for the storage space you use. That’s it!
So, when will you be making the move to cloud computing?
