Why Your Business Needs Its Own Cloud

in #steemit8 years ago (edited)

Why Your Business Needs Its Own Cloud

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Entrepreneurs...

face many problems while setting a new business up. Most of all, they have to deal with a large variety of costs, and any cost that can be cut or reduced may have a decisive impact on whether or not a new business is going to succeed.

Every business that has an online presence must handle in some level with Information Technology. The most common IT operating costs are buying hardware and maintaining an IT team. For example, an average trade association spends over $ 70,000 on hardware and software every year and about 80% of IT related expenses appear after the initial purchase. On the other hand, simply ignoring the needs to store, share and protect files is not viable.

An extremely practical solution to this problem is opting for a cloud storage service. By doing that, a small business will still have many IT solutions at a much lower cost. Using cloud space, there is no need for expensive hardware to store files. Another point is file security. Cloud storages with client-side encryption are very secure and maintain the business' privacy.

Cloud storage can reduce costs and maintain quality at the same time.

Cloud storage is still a relatively new technology. Many business owners still want more assurances before they take up the service. For your particular care, here are benefits of cloud storage.

1 Cost Savings

When you take up cloud storage...

you save money on the cost of equipment. The traditional form of storage requires the purchase of hardware and software. In addition, you will also have to upgrade the data storage equipment, not forgetting the cost associated with maintaining it. As hardware costs reduced, staff costs for fixing and managing software solutions continue to escalate. Going for the cloud storage option gives the small business a cost saving lifeline. The provider has massive capacity and services many businesses such that the company is able to leverage its scale advantages and pass on the cost benefits to its clients.

2 Data Integrity

Data integrity is a serious security concern ...

for business owners because it can make or break their businesses. Having a backup on the company premises helps, but this only comes in handy for non-emergency reasons. For example, if your business premise faces a power outage and then running systems lose their most recent transaction history, you can rely on backups. If you lose data because of a disaster or a burglary, you might also loose the on-site backup. Having another backup at a cloud storage service assists you to get access to your small business data even with it is physically impossible to reach your business.

Natural calamities like hurricanes spare no business when they hit. During such an unfortunate period, the cloud storage service acts as a business insurance benefit for your data. Instead of risking the exposure of critical information to non-authorized staff, during the data recovery process, it gives you the option of wiping away all affected data from local storage hardware. You can then fix any physical damage and restore the data from the cloud service. This option maintains the integrity of the data.

3 Anytime, Anywhere Data Access

The internet allowed...

small business to have a presence globally. Cloud storage enhances this concept by allowing your small business to hire and collaborate with workers from all over the world on a real-time basis. Hosting projects on the cloud gives the small business an ability to handle document access requests simultaneously from more than one site. The service eliminates the need for sending information back and forth, and the time required to wait for feedback on work done.

Although hiring staffs on a global scale may not fit a small business' needs, the ability to work from home, at a café or while attending to family emergencies, is welcome. Without cloud storage, as a small business owner, you would have to visit your business premises physically to get files but you can now do it on your tablet as you meet a client away from the office.

If you still ask...

should your small business go for cloud storage, the answer is a solid yes! That is if you want your small business to grow.

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Based on the title, I fully expected this to be an advertisement for ownCloud (which I use personally and love).

Actually, I forgot to put in the links in the end of the article ( I'll put them in a.s.a.p.) that go to a series of steemit posts where I'm walking people through how to set up an owncloud account, so you are right about that. This post was just to give a few reasons anyone might want to go ahead and create their own cloud.

Ah, okay. Cool. I love ownCloud. I was using it as a cloud storage/backup solution and hosting my phone's contacts and calendar information for a while. At this point it's more of a secondary backup solution, but I love the idea of running it myself on my own server to turn it off. It's definitely an awesome piece of software.