By Dominic Jones

The first thing to consider is that cloud computing isn’t free. It may be a cost effective solution in the long term but in the short term it requires investment. There is normally a set up fee and a monthly service charge, levied by the cloud provider, and this will be based on the number of users and the software you opt to use in the cloud. There is normally a data transfer cost as well, which will vary in accordance with the amount of information you are storing.

Financially speaking, cloud computing is a bit like leasing a car. You pay for it every month but you will never be left with equipment that you actually own. This may not be a problem for some users, but for others it could be an issue. As an SME looking for low start up costs you may be better off actually leasing the hardware you need.

The final cost consideration with cloud computing is that you are likely to be tied into a twelve month contract, whether or not that’s right for your company.

However, the fiscal implications aren’t the only issues you will encounter; you also have technology to contend with.

The first requirement is a highly reliable Internet connection. A recent survey, conducted by AMD’s server and embedded division, showed that 32% of companies are still worried about their Internet connection and that this was the biggest factor hampering take up.

If you decide to adopt cloud computing for your business you will need a broadband contract with a service level agreement built in. You need a guarantee that downtime will be rare and that you are going to be back in action within a couple of hours when it occurs.

The drawback is that this could multiply your monthly broadband bill by ten.

The bandwidth you will require depends on the services you are putting into the cloud. If you plan to run voice and data over the connection in an office environment you might find that 1MB per user is fine. The caveat here is that, as commonly available Internet speeds increase and Moore’s Law allows the computing capacity of hardware to double every eighteen months, that figure will become obsolete very quickly. I wrote this article in June 2011 but if you are reading it later than December in the same year I recommend giving us a call to re-confirm that number.

Of course, if your reason for adopting cloud computing is that you run a business where every employee works from home, this won’t be an issue as only one or two users will be accessing the cloud via each Internet connection.

What are the physical system requirements for cloud computing?

Cloud computing only really replaces your server. You still need a network, printers, desktop machines, anti-virus software and 90 per cent of the IT set up you would have needed before. You are just taking the server out of the office environment and hosting it on the Web.

So, while you are reducing the costs of buying and installing a server or multiple servers, your other costs remain. And you still need someone, either in house or externally, to provide IT support. For instance, you can’t allow the fact that the anti-virus product on a single machine has expired to damage your entire network and potentially the cloud as well.

The key to cloud computing is to get the right advice before deciding in favour of, or against, migrating to the cloud. As a result, Barton Technology is offering every reader of New Media Knowledge a free of charge consultation during which Barton Technology will analyse your existing IT system and provide recommendations to help you achieve your objectives. This might involve cloud computing, traditional IT activity or a mixture of the two; say VoIP as a business telephone solution with data staying on the ground.

Notes

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See in the link below the first article of this series on cloud computing for SMEs: Cloud computing can greatly benefit start up and small businesses.

About the author and the company

Dominic Jones is managing director of IT support firm Barton Technology. Established in April 2000, Barton Technology is a privately owned company with a proven approach which is quality driven, thorough and extraordinarily successful. From their headquarters in South London, they specialise in providing IT Support and Business Telephone services to customers in the Construction, Not for Profit, Retail, Finance, Legal and Insurance SME sectors and who are located in London, Surrey and Kent.

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