Anything which isn't a simple webpage is being branded with the buzzphrase of being 'in the cloud'. 5 years ago it was called Software as a service and 10 years ago it was a webpage.
I'm seeing a heck of a lot of advertisements, articles and sales pitches for pushing applications into the cloud. The idea is that you use an application like Salesforce.com instead of an application installed on your computer. All of the articles are positive and sell cloud / Web based applications as the perfect solution, and they really can be. CRM, HR and Finance Systems can cost a heck of a lot of money for Small and Medium sized businesses.
A lot of the articles I'm reading do not portray the flip side of the argument. Yes, there's a huge upside to Cloud based computing, but there are also some downsides which should be taken into account.
The first thing you should always consider, is that you're trusting someone else with your data, be that your own company's files, staff information or details of your customers. Are you confident that the company can be trusted with your data?
The second thing to consider is what will happen if you wake up tomorrow and your provider is not available? Can you get hold of them on the phone to find out what is happening? Can you continue your business while you don't have access to your data until your provider can get things running again
Hard on the heels of the website being unavailable is what happens if your Internet connection is unavailable? Yet again, do you have a business continuity plan to enable you to serve your customers
The final downside for today, is what happens if you wake up tomorrow and your service provider doesn't exist, they've gone bankrupt, into administration, failed to pay their bills, all of their staff won the lottery at the weekend.
The biggest thing to do BEFORE taking any decision, whether it includes cloud computing or not, is to do due diligence on any new contract and put full business continuity in place. Risk Analysis is a huge part of any new contract.
I'm seeing a heck of a lot of advertisements, articles and sales pitches for pushing applications into the cloud. The idea is that you use an application like Salesforce.com instead of an application installed on your computer. All of the articles are positive and sell cloud / Web based applications as the perfect solution, and they really can be. CRM, HR and Finance Systems can cost a heck of a lot of money for Small and Medium sized businesses.
A lot of the articles I'm reading do not portray the flip side of the argument. Yes, there's a huge upside to Cloud based computing, but there are also some downsides which should be taken into account.
The first thing you should always consider, is that you're trusting someone else with your data, be that your own company's files, staff information or details of your customers. Are you confident that the company can be trusted with your data?
The second thing to consider is what will happen if you wake up tomorrow and your provider is not available? Can you get hold of them on the phone to find out what is happening? Can you continue your business while you don't have access to your data until your provider can get things running again
Hard on the heels of the website being unavailable is what happens if your Internet connection is unavailable? Yet again, do you have a business continuity plan to enable you to serve your customers
The final downside for today, is what happens if you wake up tomorrow and your service provider doesn't exist, they've gone bankrupt, into administration, failed to pay their bills, all of their staff won the lottery at the weekend.
The biggest thing to do BEFORE taking any decision, whether it includes cloud computing or not, is to do due diligence on any new contract and put full business continuity in place. Risk Analysis is a huge part of any new contract.
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