What to Ask Before Moving Your Small or Medium-sized Enterprise to the Cloud…

What to Ask Before Moving Your Small or Medium-sized Enterprise to the Cloud…

Should you move your business to the cloud? We could go ahead and suggest yes, because you and other businesses need cloud technology to streamline business operations, effectively scale your storage capacity, and strengthen your office networks’ security -- among other incomparable benefits. But of course, we don’t want to sound preachy.

So we'll simply say, in order to survive and thrive in today’s competitive business environment, you should consider all the options and satisfy whatever curiosity you may have about the cloud’s power. You can take these benefits at face value, or you can take a long, hard look at your business’ needs and ask these critical questions before migrating your business to the cloud.

I operate a small-to-medium-sized enterprise. Do I really need to move it to the cloud?

The results from a survey conducted by an IT workers’ professional network indicate that SMEs are ‘expected to hang onto older IT services and hardware,’ but IT budgets will be spent more toward software upgrades in 2017. In line with this finding, the same survey states that 38 percent of IT professionals also said cloud and hosted services are “very or extremely important,” which is a significant increase from last year’s 29 percent.

These IT professionals’ responses are indicative of the cloud’s growing popularity. Some businesses may not prioritize spending on cloud infrastructure, but they do not deny its usefulness to their business operations.

Can my business survive cloud-caused downtime and other issues?

Big cloud service providers like Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have had major issues that caused considerable panic among their clients.

Any managed services provider that offers and uses cloud technology knows that cloud-based issues do occur -- just as in-house email and data servers crash. However, if you practice due diligence on seeking out a reliable and responsive cloud provider, you won’t have to worry about the effects of an isolated cloud outage. Furthermore, the combined benefits of cost-savings, streamlined collaboration, process automation, and superb support should definitely outweigh your fears of experiencing downtime events.

What are the security implications in my business if I move to the cloud?

Security is a big issue for every business, and anyone who has ever worked with IT knows this.

Some say, however, that being on the cloud is much safer than being off it. Data security, whether on or off-cloud, depends on the quality of your IT’s gatekeepers. If your business has been running on internal databases/servers without any security breaches, kudos to your IT security department. In the same vein, cloud service providers able to keep their clients’ data from being violated deserve as much praise. In short, having impenetrable network defenses is a result of various factors, including internal practices and/or the level of expertise of an outsourced provider.

Should I move everything to the cloud?

Different businesses are complex, and so are cloud services, whether in terms of storage, privacy, or overall capacity. Cloud technology isn’t the one-size-fits-all answer to all your IT questions. It isn’t designed for mass consumption, and services are often offered with some degree of customization, especially for businesses with unique needs -- that is to say, every business.

Those who have used cloud technology may or may not know there are various types of cloud: private, public, and hybrid. Private cloud makes sense for businesses that want to leverage the efficiency of a cloud architecture without relinquishing an ounce of privacy. On the other hand, the public cloud is a relatively inexpensive alternative to a private cloud and comes with high scalability. A hybrid cloud, as its name suggests, combines the best qualities of both.

It’s Fluid Networks’ objective to align technology with the business goals of small-to-medium-sized enterprises. With our Cloud Enabled Office™, SMEs benefit from a noticeably enhanced productivity that comes from combining our process-improvement mindset and the cloud’s affordable, easy-to-use, enterprise-level functionality.

No business is impervious to technological issues that may be precipitated by the cloud. But cloud computing’s benefits is impossible to ignore in favor of outdated systems. Your business could benefit from a specific type of cloud strategy, and it’s in your best interest to know which strategy will work toward increasing your company’s productivity and profitability. To find out how Fluid Networks’ Cloud Enabled Office™ can design an optimal cloud strategy for you, contact us today.