Where have all the servers gone?
Cloud computing is revolutionising how people and businesses interact with their favourite tools – but is it safe and what choices do you have in what and how to deploy?
Choice
Over the last four years, there has been a steady uptake in users, including those in business, migrating their IT infrastructure to offsite servers. Typically the two big players in this arena, Microsoft and Google, while enticing you with free storage (up to a point) also share free office tools such as spreadsheets and word processing.
Both the big players offer great platforms but don’t overlook Linux-based offerings such as Ubuntu which is seeing more interest in its open source stance.
I would trial at least the big two offerings who both offer 30 day free packages – but more importantly, ensure that you have set up a “champions committee” so they can input and evaluate the process and influence decision making. The committee would best be served to contain both technical and non-technical employees so everyone’s needs are taken into account.
Deployment
Plan. Plan. Then plan again.
Involve all, communicate the objectives of the move and if your business is of a size of over 10 users think of employing a dedicated third party supplier specialising in the platform you chose to deploy. This might cost money but you will get the best experience.
wesspeak 