I keep hearing about Cloud Computing, but what is it?

If you’re not from a technical background “Cloud Computing” can sound a bit daunting. Cloud Computing is essentially services delivered securely over the internet, from servers that you don’t own.Cloud computing has been around for years and many of us are already using it without even realising. Facebook, Hotmail and You Tube are all examples of typical cloud applications you may be familiar with.Cloud computing can give your firm access to IT technologies, without the constraints of large upfront costs, space, power or extensive setup time. The responsibility of on-going management and maintenance is taken care of by the provider so this reduces your future support costs.

One of the key benefits is that your employees will have access to your cloud based application from anywhere in the world, this is particularly beneficial for companies with sales people on the road or who do business abroad.

Considering the CLOUD? See what your options are:

1. Hosted Servers – rather than running your own servers in
your own offices you outsource them to a professional data centre;

2. Hosted Applications – where you can rent user accounts
for different applications (having a hosted Exchange for Outlook means you can
rent individual mailboxes and you pay per user. This way you are able to enjoy
all of the benefits of Exchange such as shared calendars without the financial
outlay)

3. Hosted Software – many accounting packages now have cloud
versions for their traditional on premise solutions.

4. Online Data Backup – Backup your data securely over the
internet to a secure server centre. No need for tapes or removable devices and
you can choose to backup your data daily, weekly or monthly.

5. Online Data Storage – You can also store your business
critical data in the cloud making it easier for you to be up and running
quickly in the event of a disaster and also gives allows access to your data
remotely.