Why?

Because companies choose to use Cloud Services for the following reasons.
1. To urgently replace an existing backup solution.
2. Because some new urgent project demands a Cloud based solution.
3. To speedily boost or replace on premise servers.

All of these are time based demands and often they spawn a sudden launch into Cloud without serious consideration of how resources should be managed.

The common problems this creates include:

• No tagging
• No one knows why a server was built or if it can be deleted
• Lack of clear ownership
• Bills cannot be allocated properly
• Disagreement as to who owns the shared Cloud services
• Insecure solutions
• Inefficient solutions
• Inflexible designs

Insperitas can help you by:

Evaluating your whole Cloud infrastructure
Ensuring proper systems and processes to enforce best practices
(read more…)
Remediation of existing issues

But you don’t want or need to become dependent on Insperitas. And you probably wont be able to move immediately to meet best practices. A better solution might be for a consultant can come to your site (or work remotely) for 1  day a week to teach and guide your own employees to implement success.

Together let’s bring your costs back down to earth.

Call me  (+44 7932 678578) or fill in your details on our contact page and start moving towards a more cost effective Cloud engagement.

“Are you asking me for money?’

Followed quickly by:

“Can you save me money?’

Of course the answer is:  It depends!  I would like to shout out “YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT” but that’s probably not helpful. Instead I decided to write this blog  “Saving Money with The Cloud”.

Most businesses I speak to face many pressures and the last thing on their mind is IT.  They are concerned about getting new business, managing staff, their premises costs, managing their current workload effectively… the list goes on.

So here are  FIVE reasons to think about your business and Cloud IT Solutions.

Continuity

Taking the most obvious reasons for spending on IT first, we need to talk about failure. What happens when it all goes wrong? You have data saved on your laptop or a local server and it breaks. Do you have a backup? Do you know how to access your backup? Will you be reliant on someone visiting your business to fix the problem? What will that cost?

We can level this up too… what happens when the company you rely on to supply your backup solution fails to deliver?  Do you want to wait until there is a disaster to find out if your solution is effective? Most companies seem to be happy to operate with this head in the sand approach. The truth is that backing up to Cloud is likely to be either a necessary extra expense (if you have no valuable backup solution today) or a cost saving (if your current backup solution is anywhere other than in The Cloud). So the answer here is  “Yes I can save you money.”

Growth

If you need to expand for any reason you should think Cloud. If you take on staff how will you communicate and share data? Do you need more space for more data?  The Cloud might be the cheapest option and will remove your need to spend cash on new hardware.

Money Management

Maybe this should be the number 1 reason to move to Cloud? With Cloud Services you pay for what you use. Its easy to budget. There are no unexpected bills. Any Cloud support costs should be 100% transparent with no surprises.

Security

The next thing we need to discuss is “Security”.  IT Security is such a massive topic, whole books are written about it and anything I write here could only gloss over one of the most important IT topics.   Suffice it to say that lots of small companies imagine that this is not an issue for them. Until you ask them what their competitors could do with their customer list… or what they could do with their competitors list of contacts. Security IS an issue for EVERYONE.

Some imagine that the least secure place for their data is on the cloud but I suggest you look at it this way: If I were to post your data where everyone can see it, such as on a billboard, what would we need to do with that data to keep it secure. Then answer is to encrypt it. Secrecy has come a long way since you were a child. We don’t just swap the letters around or write it in lemon juice. Very complex encryption techniques are available to all of us. By utilizing this technology we can choose precisely who should see what data whilst making it available easily.

We don’t just swap the letters around
or write it in lemon juice.

Improving your business

For some companies there is a clear benefit in improving their IT. Yes you can save money by introducing efficiency to your business. Good IT choices can drive better business decisions.  Even very small businesses should be tech-aware. Whether its digital marketing, a better website or sharing data with customers YOU can improve your business by making good IT choices.

For larger customers, adopting Cloud best practices can make you reach your market faster, change quicker and allow you to become more agile. Business growth is often driven by disrupting the status quo. Will you be disrupting or disrupted?

In order to ensure that costs are kept to a minimum it should be possible at all times to know all there is to know about each service. Its important to realize that  when using elastic virtual servers, the logs could be deleted when the server is deleted. Therefore servers should log all data centrally in a way that can be readily interrogated.

• Log everything. Modern Cloud Services provide detailed logs. Collect them ALL. These include Application Logs, Infrastructure Logs and Security Logs!
• Good elasticity depends on having accurate usage data.
• Failing to measure is a sure fire way to waste money.
• Set alerts on services based on the metrics expected and your design.
• Use Tags properly. Your 1st tag for each item should be Cost_Centre. Tagging Taxonomy is important to save future headaches.
• A good logging tool is essential for intelligent interpretation.