Cloud myths.. And the truth
More than four out of five UK businesses have now adopted at least one Cloud based service. Whilst many companies have dived in head first and transitioned everything to the Cloud, there are a number of organisations that are a little more hesitant and aren’t yet reaping the benefits. Unfortunately, there are a number of myths and assumptions around the Cloud. Let’s look at these and reveal the truths behind them.
1.The Cloud is not as safe as a physical machine.
The Cloud, in its simplest form, is a server in a data centre. With Exchange Online in Office 365 for example, a cloud based service that replaces the need of having an onsite Exchange server, your data is stored and accessed from data centres with military grade encryption and multiple-layers of security. Unlike your exchange server in your office, it’s resilient to natural disasters, unauthorised access and environmental threats.
2. It takes months to move to the Cloud
Each company is different so there’s no guaranteed ‘one-size-fits-all’ timeframe. It depends on the size of your business, number of sites, data sets and what type of Cloud solution you are moving to. With Exchange Online in Office 365 for example, we can run a cut over migration which means you don’t have to worry about time frames as your data would sync to the cloud in the background as you work, and once done you can simply switch from your on-premise server when you’re ready to do so.
For Cloud Backup, if you’re currently Backing up to a physical box we can take a snapshot Backup of your hard drive which will give you immediate protection. After that all Backups will run seamlessly without interference whilst you work.
3. My Internet isn’t fast enough to move to the cloud
Whilst we live in a time where we can get Facebook (a cloud based app) on the M3, speeds are largely dependent on what types of data you wish to access. Whilst each business needs to be scoped out on an individual basis, slow performance and bandwidth speeds can often be resolved by adopting a hybrid solution and by moving some of your infrastructure to the cloud.
An example we came across recently was a Head Office and two other offices which access their servers via a secure site-to-site Virtual Private Network (VPN). The Head Office set up consisted of, an Active Directory Server, a Remote Desktop Server (RDS) and an Application Server. Workers outside of Head Office were suffering (and complaining about) slow performance of their systems, but the issue wasn’t the specifications of the servers, it was the constraint of the Head Office bandwidth. As the remote sites accessed data from Head Office their performance was dictated by the upload speed of Head Office not their download speed. To alleviate this, the Head Office moved the RDS and App Server to the cloud giving users access to data centre speeds with the only limitation being the download speed of each site.
4. Moving to the Cloud is complicated.
Having tech support to guide your move is beneficial. At Surrey IT, we offer IT support contracts which enable you to have an expert IT team on hand for a small monthly fee without the need to hire in-house. We can help you choose the best Cloud services for your business and assist with your migration to them.
5. The Cloud is expensive
By the very nature of how you pay, the Cloud is better value for money than physical machines. Like all Cloud services, Office 365 is paid for on a monthly basis which minimises your upfront costs and means there’s more flexibility to invest capital elsewhere within the business. With Office 365 you also don’t have to worry about your Exchange Server failing, needing downtime to apply updates, Backups or coming to its end of life. Finally, as your business grows, you won’t need to invest in additional servers you can simply add another license.
