Does Cloud Computing Make Sense for Small Businesses?

One of the major questions facing small businesses is deciding on whether to choose onsite or offsite servers for their data. Using servers at your business’ physical location or transitioning to a cloud computing provider both have their respective advantages. After accounting for cost, security, and flexibility, cloud computing can often be the most cost-effective solution for a small business’ data needs. Some of the advantages of going with cloud computing over physical, onsite servers provides:

Flexibility: Cloud computing is the perfect solution for businesses with fluctuating needs. Cloud computing is available as either software as a service or infrastructure as a service; instead of having equipment onsite with performance and storage limits, and high costs for maintenance, your business can select cloud computing based on demand. With most services, you can easily scale up to increase available resources as your business needs and storage requirements change.



Security: Security in the cloud can be an advantage because in many cases, enterprise level security is built-in to the service offering. However, just because the service has the capabilities, often you need to turn the features on and configure them to your needs. With software as a service, the service provider is typically taking care of the security of your data as well as the backups. In addition, moving to cloud computing can also help address concerns of disaster recovery as your data becomes highly available.



Ease of Maintenance: Cloud computing can reduce or eliminate excessive waste in capital as well as labor in maintaining onsite servers. Many businesses dedicate a team of IT professionals to handle server and application needs for the business. It is possible that adopting cloud computing could reduce your costs or allow you to capitalize on the rapid advancements around cloud applications that could help to accelerate the growth of your business.



Pitfalls to avoid when migrating to the cloud.

Migrating data all at once: Migrating your data all at once is often a recipe for disaster. Be sure to discuss fallback plans should the migration fail and understand the impact and time needed for reverting to the original state.

Overlooking compatibility issues:  The architecture of existing applications and systems can hinder the migration due to various reasons. Evaluating your applications and programs prior to migration is vital.



Neglecting security measures:  Reviewing internal security protocols and enforcing them during migration is important. You are solely responsible for your business’ data and security; any compliance requirements have to be followed during migration as well. Additionally, just because a subscription says it is compliant or secure doesn’t mean that simply buying makes it true. Ask your migration provider to discuss in detail what security controls are in place by default, and which controls need to be configured or discussed prior to implementation.