Enterprise Nation

Do you keep hearing the term ‘cloud computing’ and keep wondering what it means? Join the club! Thankfully, Rebecca Scally from IT solutions business, Big Little Fish, is here to explain. She also offers five good reasons as to why we should make it our business to know.

The cloud explained

The cloud is simply a metphor for the internet.  Cloud computing can roughly be described as a highly scalable computing resource provided as an external service via the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. There's no need to worry about how things are being maintained behind the scenes - you simply purchase the IT service you require as you would any other utility.
 
There are many reasons why organisations of all sizes and types are adopting this model of IT but it is a particularly powerful model for home business owners. It provides a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Ultimately, it can save companies a considerable amount of money. 

Here are five reasons for home business owners to consider cloud computing:

1. Low capital expenditure

Avoid spending large amounts of capital on purchasing and installing your IT infrastructure or applications by moving to the cloud model. Capital expenditure on IT reduces available working capital for other critical operations and business investments. Cloud computing offers a simple operational expense that’s easier to budget for month-by-month, and prevents money being wasted on depreciating assets.

2.Helps smaller businesses compete

Historically there has been a big disparity between the IT resources available to small businesses and larger enterprises. Cloud computing has made it possible for smaller companies to compete on an even playing field with much bigger competitors. ‘Renting’ IT services instead of investing in hardware and software makes them much more affordable. Small businesses are accessing services that would traditionally cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and can now be bought for a low monthly fee.

3. Scalability on demand

React quickly to changing IT needs by adding or subtracting capacity and users as and when required. Even better, because cloud-computing follows a utility model in which service costs are based on actual consumption, you only pay for what you use.

4. Anywhere Access

Cloud-based IT services let you access your applications and data securely from any location via an internet connection.  It has been pointed out that if your internet connection fails, you will not be able to access your data. However, due to the ‘anywhere access’ nature of the cloud, users can simply connect from a different location - so if your home connection fails, you can access your data from the nearest Wi-Fi enabled point.

5. Disaster recovery/backup

Reputable cloud computing providers provide an array of disaster recovery services, from cloud backup (allowing you to store important files from your desktop or office network within their data centres) to having ready-to-go desktops and services in case your business is hit by problems. You don’t have to worry about data backup or disaster recovery, as this can be taken care of as part of the service. Files can be stored twice at different remote locations to ensure that there's always a copy available 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.

Rebecca Scally, Big Little Fish
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