Should Your Company Move to The Cloud?

‘Moving to The Cloud’ is a term that is banded around so much these days. But what is involved in reality and what can organisations really expect in terms of benefits, or otherwise? We have recently been working with a new IT and Telecoms specialist, ‘tecwork’ and their Managing Director, Nick Brandon had this to say… What Exactly is The Cloud? ‘The Cloud’ is nothing more than a way of connecting with something that isn’t in your premises, which probably once was. The two main examples of this is your IT and your Telecoms and these days they are both interconnected like never before. Let’s deal with IT first. Before, if you were a small organisation (small is less than 500 people!), somewhere in your premises you would have had a server or multiple servers running software and applications that your staff connected to. In many instances this would be a Microsoft server and it would allow staff to access, save and archive files and documents. You might also have an email system, typically Microsoft Exchange, which is the ‘postman’ for your organisational email’s. Other software may exist such as accounting software like Sage and a database or CRM software like Microsoft Access or Dynamics or Goldmine or Maximiser. There could be a lot of different servers running different software applications. Sometimes, in a larger office, there could be racks of servers and expensive equipment keeping it running (like air conditioning and power supplies). In the ‘new world’ The Cloud can run all or most of these applications. For instance, Microsoft are pushing Office 365 which is their new(ish) desktop offering which allows users to work online or offline from any location with the full and most up-to-date Microsoft Office suite including Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Skype for Business – about 20 applications. As part of that you get Hosted Microsoft Exchange which removes the need for this to reside on a server in your premises. You simply pay a small monthly fee and you can install the applications onto 5 different devices per user. Working from anywhere 24/7/365 makes staff more agile. You can forget annoying things like backing up email files and spam filtering as Microsoft have it all covered. Plus there is no need for remote workers having to access your network to get to data and users get huge amounts of storage included, which solves yet another problem. Most other software vendors have done or are pushing web-based versions of their software meaning you access them in the cloud rather than by using your server. This often largely makes servers redundant, meaning lower IT and maintenance costs. If we move onto telecoms, ISDN, which has been to GOTO voice connection for businesses since 1990, is being switched off in 2025 and you won’t be able to buy it new from 2020. The alternative is either to replace the ISDN with a Cloud-Based connection like a SIP trunk (a SIP trunk is basically the same, but much more feature rich service than ISDN, delivered on an internet connection) which connects to your premises-based phone system, or go the whole way and replace your whole phone system with a cloud-based system. The latter is a definite option for offices that have less than 50 people or do not want anything particularly unusual. For those that still need a phone system (such as fragmented sites likes schools and factories, or someone that wants a specific feature that cannot be done well by a hosted system), then a SIP trunk is the option to go for.

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