Cloud technology has helped firms to lower the risks they face as well as improving productivity, writes Lorcan Cunningham of Savenet Solutions

With the advent of cloud technologies, IT can now bring about genuine reduction in business risk, instead of adding to the list of things that can go wrong. There are several key areas where cloud technologies can
significantly reduce business risk if chosen carefully.

+ Software As A Service: Cloud application platforms like Office 365 and Google Apps have transformed the way many businesses utilise applications like email, word processing and spreadsheets. Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings, such as Salesforce and Zoho, are among the many apps that now provide CRM services to thousands of businesses over a web browser.

If you haven’t yet considered moving to a cloud-based platform like Office 365, you should consider how this has eliminated the need for a server in the office to run the applications and eliminated the need to buy software that must be supported and upgraded. It also removes the need to provide disaster recovery for that email server, and your IT staff have one less system to manage. The data, however, is still yours, as is the responsibility to manage and protect it.

+ Data Protection: Cloud technologies are very effective in protecting your company’s data by backing it up and storing it in the cloud.When you lose files or have any form of data corruption, you can retrieve the files from the cloud service within minutes.

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For your servers and business applications that are not running in the SaaS model, a cloud disaster recovery (DR) solution can dramatically reduce your business risk by replicating your servers and data into a cloud DR environment.

+ Reduce Over-Reliance: Many companies find that their IT function is operated by one or two staff members, and that they are totally reliant on these individuals to keep everything functioning. If your key IT person is sick, on holidays or leaves the business, you are very vulnerable to any disruption in the IT system.

Using the services of a managed cloud provider means that you are much less reliant on staff, and no matter who comes or goes, the IT systems continue to function and be supported by the cloud services provider.

+ From CapEx To OpEx: The old model of IT investment was to buy everything yourself up front with cash, or raise finance to fund the purchase over three years.

Cloud technologies allow you to move away from this CapEx model to an OpEx model, where you only pay for what you use – with no capital outlay and no depreciation of assets that have to be disposed of at end-oflife.  If you are looking to use a cloud services provider for any aspect of your IT environment, always consider these points:

+ Transparency – Make sure they say clearly where the data is being hosted and what technologies they are using to manage their service.

+ Customer Support – Dealing with a quality service provider ensures you get through to someone in person, as opposed to a faceless company.

+ Off Boarding – Get a clear breakdown of how you can leave the service and move to another provider if you want to change suppliers later on.

+ Legal boundaries and data protection – By hosting in Ireland you come under the Irish data protection laws, which are some of the strongest in the world.

+ Financial stability – Ensure the service provider you are about to trust with your critical IT systems and data is in a sound financial and legal position.

Lorcan Cunningham is CTO with Savenet Solutions. See www.savenetsolutions.com