Trusting the Cloud: Is It Right for Your Business?

There is little doubt that cloud computing will become increasingly important to businesses in the coming years.  If you're a business owner or an IT manager, you should take the time to learn more about cloud computing and how it may benefit your company.  But you should also know that cloud computing is not perfect.  Both Microsoft and Google have suffered cloud service outages in recent weeks, and this is not the first time it has happened.  It probably won't be the last time, either.  Does that mean you shouldn't trust your business's applications to the cloud?  Nope, it just means you need to be aware of the issues and know how to deal with them.  After all, network outages are not something new with the cloud.  With an on-site network, a server can crash, a router can fail, and a host of other problems can occur.  The difference is if your own server crashes it's a local event that doesn't make headlines.  If Microsoft's cloud crashes, businesses around the globe are affected, and that's news.  But the actual impact on your business may be less.  How long would it take you to recover if your own server crashed?  You'd need a new server (or create a new virtual server on one of your other servers), you'd need to re-install applications, and you'd need to recover data from your backups (you do have backups, right?).  This could take days.  With a good cloud service you could be back up in minutes or hours.  Don't get turned off by the idea of moving to the cloud just because of an occasional headline.  Think about it in terms of your other alternatives.

Cloud services aren't right for every business or for every application within a business.  But there are opportunities to improve efficiencies and reduce costs by deploying them judiciously.  Just use good, business-class cloud service providers and take preventative actions to minimize the impact of service disruptions.  Here's an interesting article from PCWorld that talks about the topic in more detail: Microsoft and Google Suffer Outages: Can You Trust the Cloud?