"Cloud" has been a favourite buzzword for a few years now but essentially it boils down to trusting your data and your business to people you can't meet, and often can't even speak to when things stop working! Having said that, there are some situations where "Cloud" services can make sense - speak to us before committing your business to a cloudy future and take advantage of our experience of what works and what might not…

What's wrong with the Cloud?

Although "Cloud" has been promoted as something new and exciting, it is in part a return to an old way of working; where the servers that do the hard work of storing and processing your data are outwith your business and your control, and you essentially rent the services. For smaller businesses especially, the appeal of dispensing with the (perceived) headache of maintaining your own servers is understandable - but doing so can present some very real problems.

  • Your data is at the mercy of companies you can't deal with in person
  • Your data may be stored on servers anywhere in the world, raising potential privacy and data protection issues
  • Backing up your data to restore later can be very difficult with some types of cloud / hosted services
  • Many cloud services require a reliable, fast Internet connection which isn't always available, particularly in rural areas like parts of the Highlands
  • When something does go wrong (and it does,periodically - even giants like Google and Apple have outages) you can't do a thing about it - the whole situation is out of your hands and you can't even get anyone else in to help

So why do we offer cloud services?

As with many things in life, there are real advantages to be weighed against these disadvantages. For some some companies, remote hosting of some services does make sense and the advantages outweigh the downsides. Some of those advantages are:

  • Cloud services can make it really easy to get access to your data no matter where you are
  • Cloud services can provide a convenient and relatively safe way of sharing data with other people as part of your collaborations
  • Cloud services can provide a great offsite backup facility in addition to your regular onsite backups
  • For small companies with only one or two members of staff or just starting out, getting a dedicated server for some tasks can be just too much of an initial expense; some of these services can be remotely hosted without too many drawbacks

In short, we are not opposed to the use of Cloud services and are resellers for a chosen set which we have found to provide a reliable and genuinely useful service for our customers. We are also familiar with configuring and administering many others and will be happy to help you no matter what services you may choose or already be using!