Cloud based hosting could change the way you do business
Choosing the right hosting solution is an essential step in future-proofing your business. The correct hosting choice will offer you security, scalability and reliability, whereas making the wrong choice could prove costly both in terms of time and resources.
More and more companies are moving to cloud based hosting. There are some notable differences between cloud hosting versus using a more traditional, locally hosted approach, especially around the accessibility and security of data. It’s therefore well worth considering the pros and cons.
The advantages of cloud based hosting
Scalability and flexibility
No two projects are the same, and as your business grows, so may your requirements for hosting. Cloud based hosting allows scalability in a way that traditional storage does not.
The amount of storage can easily be increased or decreased according to your evolving requirements, and a good hosting provider will offer a flexible pricing structure to reflect these changes in specification, as well as any changes in the number of users accessing the environment.
Disaster recovery
A significant advantage of using a cloud based hosting solution is the peace of mind that comes with the knowledge that information is held securely, remotely, with an up-to-date backup.
Local data servers can be vulnerable to on-site issues like flooding or fire or be susceptible to unauthorized access. Keeping your data in a secure cloud-based environment means you can manage access and oversee user activity, without worrying about keeping sensitive data in an insecure physical location.
Uptime
One of the benefits of hosting in the cloud is the 24/7/365 access to information.
Good hosting environments should always be accessible to the end-user, with uptime approaching 100%. A suitable redundancy protocol should also give reassurance that there will be no disruption to service, even in the case of an event like a power cut. This reassurance is not always present with a locally hosted solution.
Savings on infrastructure cost
Hosting in the cloud can offer substantial cost advantages as compared to self-hosting. The need for costly on-site IT infrastructure to support local servers is removed, and in-house IT teams are released to work on other projects rather than spending their time trouble-shooting local server issues.
The Orbis Global Cloud Services Market Size, Status, and Forecast report for 2018-2025 found that a typical organization will save at least 35% of their annual operating costs if they employ cloud-based services.
Data accessibility
One of the significant challenges facing businesses today is making sure that everyone in the organisation has access to accurate, up-to-date information.
A cloud hosting solution allows you to hold all of your most critical metrics in one place, enabling real-time access from anywhere in the world, and ensuring that decentralized data and locally-held versions are a thing of the past.
The disadvantages of cloud based hosting
Storage space
If your business is expanding quickly and you have a storage space limit on your hosted account, then you may find that you run into the problem of exceeding your bandwidth allowance.
A sensible way to mitigate against this becoming an issue is to choose a provider who can easily scale your limit up if the need arises. This flexibility will allow you to increase your storage space in line with requirements.
Concerns about data vulnerability
Some businesses can find it challenging to give up ‘control’ of their information into a cloud based environment, and therefore struggle with concerns about data vulnerability.
It’s essential to ensure that any cloud hosting provider offers the most reliable and secure environment possible. At DRMCNatty, for example, we deploy a dedicated secure environment for each customer, and combine state of the art physical control features with automated, reliable security services. This industry-leading specification ensures that data vulnerability concerns don’t have to have a negative impact on the hosting decision.
Offline accessibility
Access to cloud-based data can be interrupted if a local internet connection is lost, causing disruption and inconvenience.
Whether or not this is a big factor in the decision to move to cloud based hosting depends on the type of functionality required. If you’re looking to run a tool such as Primavera P6 Pro in the cloud, then it’s entirely possible to back up your project files to your local network, use them on a local P6 Pro installation, and re-sync later.
Cloud based hosting weighed up
More and more businesses are weighing up the pros and cons of cloud based hosting, and are choosing to move away from the traditional, in-house hosting model. Cloud hosting can offer significant advantages to businesses looking for a flexible and scalable solution, and a good hosting provider will help navigate the way to the ideal specification.
At DRMcNatty, we can tailor our cloud hosting solutions to a range of different deployment requirements. Get in touch with our friendly and knowledgeable team today to find out more about our secure, cost-effective dedicated hosting environments.
