Considerations for Moving From a Small Business Server to a Cloud-Based Infrastructure



Cloud based computing and sharing of information is a very exciting new era for IT. These cloud-based technologies will definitely be the future.

However, when it comes down to it, your business is your livelihood and we need to take a cold and hard look at these applications and decide whether the technology is stable and mature enough to support us effectively.
Question: First, we must ask ‘Why do you want to move to the cloud?’. You might think that the answer is obvious. However, have a think about it seriously and note down all of the reasons why your office server can’t do what you need it to. The answers to this question will be very important collectively they will determine the most appropriate systems to consider.
Decisions: Assuming that the issues raised by the above question can’t be resolved by a change to the existing server setup, we then need to consider the technical positives and negatives of the available systems and decide whether the pros out-weigh the cons.
New Technology: It is extremely important to note that, although individuals have been using some of these newer cloud-based systems for a while now, scaling these systems up to cope with multi-user and sharing is still quite new and is often not without issues.
Excitement vs Disaster: To a certain extent, your job as a customer is to get excited about the new technology but my job is to try and anticipate all of the ‘what if’ scenarios. I need to do my best to prevent any issues. These may range anywhere between major system restrictions and unforeseen events.
Backups: Traditional backups systems involve taking a copy of your data away from where it naturally resides on a regular basis and ensuring that this happens. There is an argument to say that if the data lives in the cloud, then copying the data to your own laptop on a regular basis would be considered to be an off-site backup. However, this can be flawed by un-monitored (by me) local system malfunction, human error and laziness. We need to consider ways of preventing data loss being made worse by these factors.
Setup & Migration Costs:Using new technology does come at a price. Not because we intend to add a premium but simply because there are more unknowns associated with a project which is un-proven and which could add delays or expense related to producing work-arounds. Wherever possible, we will attempt to anticipate the pitfalls in order to budget for a solution but this is definitely something to bear in mind.

Selecting a Cloud Based Solution

Selecting the product that best fits the business model can be quite difficult. Products that have been around for a while tend to have a better support network around them from other users. However, newer products may claim to suit your needs better but may not necessarily have an established support network. Choosing the wrong product can be a costly exercise especially if you are forced to switch to a different product later.

If an established product doesn’t quite fit your needs, it may pay you to wait for future enhancements to the product rather than go off in search of an obscure system with little or no support.

Arguably, currently the most popular cloud-based solutions for file sharing and email:

Dropbox
Easy to use. Lots of people use it making it fairly easy to find support. Sharing is possible although setting permissions is a very manual process and you can’t set different permissions on sub-folders. Some folder manipulation tasks are difficult or tedious. One large premium Dropbox account could be shared with several free Dropbox user accounts in order to save money. Proper reliable automated backups could be an issue due to Dropbox being an application rather than a service.

Gmail
Possible alternative to Exchange. Cost is about 30 – 40 per user per year. Sharing is possible. Tasks, Notes and some other bits don’t sync with Outlook. This is just for Mail, Contacts & Calendars. Excellent spam filtering – Among the best in the world. Email ‘Search on server’ function on iPhone doesn’t work, doesn’t appear to have ever worked and I’ve seen no sign of a fix. So, if you’re looking for an old email then you’ll have to wait until you can get to your laptop. Extremely poor support. Google is renowned for offering promises of good support but actually failing to deliver anything at all. I suggest you should consider support from Google to be non-existant. Proper reliable automated backups could be an issue.

Posted in General at February 14th, 2011. No Comments.

Should College Students Have Credit Cards? The Pros and Cons

Like any situation, there are pros and cons to whether or not college students should have credit cards. Bear in mind that, like anything major, everything depends, first and foremost, on whether or not the student is financially mature and responsible.

Statistically, about 76% of college students have at least one credit card; many have more than one. One of the major pros to having one is the fact that, if used responsibly, they can help young adults build credit. After college, having credit is very important, as it helps one get a car, a house, and other forms of credit. So, not having the credit that is accumulated by a credit card can be crippling.

Of course, there are two sides to every coin. If the student is irresponsible with the credit card, It could lead to high debt and a poor credit score.

Despite this, credit cards also have many more pros. They guarantee protection in purchases, enable online purchasing, and guarantee relief in times of emergency. Knowing this, any parent can feel secure that their child is well looked-after.

Credit irresponsibility can also be addressed. If you, as the parent, don’t believe that your child is responsible enough to handle a credit card, all you have to do is explain everything about credit and credit cards to them before they leave for college. You can explain to them how they will need good credit after college, and how to maintain that good credit through responsible credit card use. Explain to them where the money for credit cards comes from, and how to avoid identity theft, and how to use it responsibly and maturely.

Though the cons may be serious to owning a credit card, they can be turned into pros, as parents influence their children to credit card responsibility.

Posted in Credit Cards at March 5th, 2009. No Comments.

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