What is the Cloud.
Well, we do not think of ourselves as smart enough to teach to others what cloud is. But we can try to explain in short our understanding of the cloud, and the benefits of using it. In short, Cloud is mostly used to refer a bunch of hardware and software resources, located mostly on internet. These resources are usually rented on time-based contracts (monthly or yearly), to businesses or individuals, based on their needs. There are cases one someone rents just some software, a complete platform, or infrastructure, therefore the terms: Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (SaaS,PaaS and IaaS, respectively). There are many benefits of using these services, as opposed to having on-site investments. We shall list few of them and everyone can decide on their own:
- You do not have to pay for hardware. This is the most obvious one: if you need a simple service on-site, let's say a file server, you need to buy at least one small server, a UPS, some managed switch. If you want the users to be able to access the files outside of the office, you also need to have some router, so you can setup some rules about access rights. This could cost you at least 2.5K - 3K USD in the best case, assuming you have already someone who knows how to properly setup the server, configure networking and access policies.
- You do not have to pay for huge running costs. Taking into consideration the scenario from above, you would need to pay high monthly fees for electricity, a good and stable internet connection, internal IT staff, and you should always take into consideration amortization costs.
- Your data is still more secured than on-site. If you think that nothing can happen to your server, even if you paid a lot for it, you are wrong. It could be some hardware failure, electricity error, human intervention, water leaks or anything you might think of. In order to avoid this, you would need to make a second investment, for what is called redundancy, meaning get some more hardware for the day when the first server fails. Simply put: You got a to have backup strategy when $h*t hits the fan (which happens more than often)
If you would consider taking this simple server into the cloud there are many benefits:
- Initial investment is minimal: you just need to rent some server (physical or virtual) which could start at 40 USD/month, configure it online, and there you go. no need for local UPS, high speed internet connection, routers and switches, etc.
Monthly const are minimal: you pay the monthly fee for the server, some routine checks and backups and that's all; no electricty bills, internet fee, IT staff or amortization.
- Your data is safe (as safe as it gets): Your data in the cloud may sit on different servers, meaning that even if one of them goes, you still have the other locations that will provision your server to you. You could always setup some backup policies at minimal costs, so your data is safe in many more places.
We would be happy to guide you through the entire process to move your existing services and infrastructure to the cloud, at a minimal cost. We shall only charge you an initial setup fee, and if you want we could do monthly checks and backup routines. Thas all it takes. Call us.
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