What is this Cloud thing?
White, fluffy, in the sky, looks like animal shapes….what is the latest buzz word “Cloud Computing” about?

We all laugh when someone tells us that cloud computing is the newest and latest thing.  It is not a new idea and definitely not the latest idea.  Cloud Computing is basically the concept of running software, hardware or any type of computing in a location that is hosted on the Internet rather than in your office.  We have called this by different names over the last decade, hosting, ASP provider, remote service, SAS (software as a service), etc.  The premise is the same.

But why does my small business even care about being able to do this?  That is the real question.  The bottom line here is just that.  The bottom line.  The technology has evolved to a price point where it is starting to make sense to move your servers out of your office and into a hosting facility that is specifically designed to keep your equipment running. This article is designed to help understand the basic principals so I will not get into the details, but suffice it to say that it is now possible to take that server that you have down the hall and get it out of your office. Wikipedia has a good description of it if you are interested in learning more specific details.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

What does this do for you?  The most obvious one is that you now do not have to worry about the maintenance of the server in your office.  You do not have to worry about keeping it cool.  You do not have to worry about keeping your server on when there is a power outage.  And most significantly, you do not have to ever worry about replacing that equipment again.  The exciting part is that the cost of reducing the headache of having your server equipment in your office is becoming reasonable.

What kind of savings are we talking about?  The return on your investment or the breakeven point for replacing your equipment in your office or outsourcing it to the Cloud varies based on the complexity of your system.  We have seen so far that the cost of putting your equipment in the cloud can be at a breakeven point of between 36 and 46 months.  What I mean by this is that you can write a check for the new system in your office, pay to have it configured and integrated into your office now, pay to have your IT professional service and maintain that server, OR you can pay one monthly flat fee to have it kept in the Cloud.   At some point between 3 and 4 years you will have spent the same amount of money either way, and that is not including any kind of time of money calculation.  Just straight up comparison dollar for dollar.  The point here is that you will most likely be replacing your server equipment around the 4 year mark anyway, so for the same cost (paid over time rather than all upfront) you get ALL of the benefits of having your system kept in the Cloud.

It sounds like a good deal.  Right?  Yes, it is.  That is what all of the buzz is about.  The cost and the advancement of the technology to allow this kind of outsourcing of your computer equipment is why there is so much talk about this.

One last point that is worth mentioning.  Disaster Recovery (DR).  If you are a business that has servers in your office and you have discussed and considered building a disaster recovery system in the event that your office or servers are not available, then using the concept of the Cloud is perfect for you.  This also applies to the company that has already implemented a DR site and that equipment is coming to end of life.  What I mean about all of this is that if you want to have the ability to copy your system to a system that is in a different city so that when there is a hurricane or some other disaster in your office, you can switch over to the live copy at the drop of a hat.  That is a true disaster recovery system.  Traditionally this is done by duplicating the servers that are in your office, renting space in a different city, installing the copied servers there and installing the software to copy the data over to the other city on an ongoing basis.  As you can imagine, this can get expensive.  For example, a company with 3 to 4 servers can easily spend $60,000 just putting the disaster recovery system in place.  Not everyone wants to cut a check for that much just for some piece of mind.  Enter Cloud Computing.  With the ability to outsource your DR system to the Cloud, you can take that $60,000 upfront cost and replace it with a $1,200 a month fee.  With that you not only have a complete DR system in place, but you never have to worry about replacing the equipment, or keeping it running, or all of the other challenges that come with owning your own servers.

All in all, this phenomena is not going away.  We believe that many of our small business clients will be moving their server equipment out of their office within the next 5 years.  It will definitely be a consideration as their in house equipment and their DR equipment begins to approach the end of its life.

See you in the Cloud.

Disaster can strike at any time.  Are you ready?  It is a simple question and unfortunately most people answer it with a no.  Also, there is not any way to prepare for every situation and every contingency but the more you plan for it the easier it is to deal with every situation.

I am talking about being ready for a technical disaster.   One where you lose, for any number of reasons, your computer, your data or your business location.  The industry calls it Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity, but despite the titles, losing information about your business or your personal life can be troublesome at best and disastrous at worst.

A couple of weeks ago I went to dinner with my wife at a restaurant on Wertheimer around 7:00pm.  We came back out of the restaurant around 8:00, it was still light outside, but despite the busy parking lot, our car had the lock popped out and my briefcase was gone.  Along with my laptop.  So at that point, two possible outcomes exists.  The thief wants to take all of the information on my laptop and use it to their advantage and we have a long drawn out identity theft issue, or they just want the hardware to sell.  Either way, all of the information, the work, the photographs, the tax returns, the bank account information, the Quicken information that was on that laptop is gone.  Luckily for me I am one of those shoe cobblers that actually wears his own shoes and all of that information was backed up, so at least I am still in business.  I just have a security issue and can just hope that the theif is not smart enough to break the security barriers that I had put into place on that laptop to get to my confidential information.

Again, disaster can strike at any time.  In Houston, there is a lot of talk about being ready for a hurricane, so people do focus on making sure they have water for the house and maybe even access to a generator.  That is great, but I believe that a hurricane is the easiest disaster to prepare for.  You can see them coming and have a few days to prepare.  It is the other kinds of disasters that you really need to consider:

o   Theft:  It can take less than 10 seconds to take a laptop, cell phone, iPad, etc, out of your car.

§  It can take less than 10 seconds to take your computer, laptop or even your server out of your office if you leave it unsecured.

§  I know a firm that had all 25 desktops AND their server stolen out of their high-rise, guarded office building on Christmas day.  When they came in the next day, all of the computers were gone and security did not see a thing.

o   Vandalism:      This comes in many shapes and sizes.

·         Disgruntled employees who sabotage your equipment.  My favorite is someone pouring molasses into the back of a server and letting it fry overnight.

·         Or, holding your lighter to the sprinkler head that is right outside of the room with all of your equipment in it.  Computers do not do well when they get wet.

·         Or, hackers getting into your computers and planting viruses, deleting files and even stealing information.  The percentage chance that someone wants to steal your information and use it is very low, but the percentage chance of some random act of vandalism through a virus has become very high.

o   Hardware failure.  Just to name a few:

§  Hard drives stop working.  Probably the most common issue here is your personal computer that has all of those digital photographs on it.  Do you really want to lose 4 years of photos of your family because you did not make a backup of some sort?  My wife would kill me if that happened.

§  Computer just dies or the operating system becomes corrupted.

§  Backup system stops working

o   Power failure.

§  Not having power in your office, in on your block, or even across the entire city due to a natural disaster can keep you from doing business.

These are just to name a few circumstances that you should consider when drawing up a plan to prepare for these kinds of events.  Again, there is not any way to be ready for every event, but you can at least have some contingency plans in place for most of them.  Here are some simple steps to take to get started:

·         Understand how long you can live without your computer systems or the information on them.

·         Make backups and keep your information in a separate location.

·         Make a plan for the replacement of every part of your system in the event you lose it for any reason, fire, theft, failure.

·         Put in some security to make it more difficult to gain access to your physical equipment and your data.

·         Plan, plan, plan.

·         Communicate your plan with your staff!  This is critical.  If no one knows what to do in an emergency except for you, then you can literally risk the well being of your business when it happens.  What if you are the one who is not available when something goes wrong. 

If this all seems a little daunting and you do not know where to start.  Call your IT service provider.  Ask them what you can do.  Get them to help you get started.

Be prepared!