Cloud-based services are appearing everywhere, and have been flavour of the month for a while now. Everywhere you look, some new start-up offering software-as-a-service (SaaS) or new cloud-based platform product is appearing, or is being heavily funded. And if you believe all the media, all the start-ups and entrepreneurs in the UK are only in the digital and social media, internet or software-as-a service space.
So is it time for non-tech business, and especially small businesses (SMEs), to fully adopt the cloud, in terms of both security and connectivity?
Just this week, Transport for London (TfL) and the Greater London Authority (GLA – including the Metropolitan Police, the London Development Agency and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority), signed a five-year enterprise agreement to use collaborative software-as-a-service technology. With it, TfL and the GLA will have a single integrated data management solution for all aspects of the contract administration process across their significant on-going portfolio of construction and facilities management works.
A report from US research firm In-Stat this week says enterprise spending on public cloud computing services is set to expand 139% from 2010 to 2011 (see this link). So usage of the cloud appears to be a growing trend in the public sector.
For SMEs the jump is still to be made among many who are not sceptical about the security and availability of a fast enough connection. What’s clear is that providers of cloud-based services (ie: those that offer to hold and provide your company data securely through some service held on a remote server and which you can access via some secure connection) have to assure businesses that the data is secure and can be accessed only by those who are authorized within your business.
On the issue of security, the argument for cloud based services for SMEs is put very well by an analyst, Dr. Windsor Holden, at Juniper Research – see ‘Cloudbursting
– the key issues with cloud mobility’. He essentially says that while data security is paramount (for many enterprises the thought of placing data in the hands of a third-party, in a server remote from their premises, may create a feeling of unease), it is very likely that the cloud solution is probably more secure than an SME’s own set-up, where the data may simply be help on a laptop or laptops.
He says that cloud service providers are anxious to demonstrate the extent of the security arrangements; they need to show that their own data loss protection measures are better than everyone else’s and that therefore a business will choose it.
He does however point out that continuous and ubiquitous connectivity are essential if companies are to be able to access their data in the cloud at any time, and until that is guaranteed, businesses will also be slow to take up cloud services.
To answer the question in the title, it is time for businesses to embrace the cloud, since for SMEs the security is likely to be better than the business has in place, if any. However, until they can be certain of always-on fast connectivity, whether by fixed internet or mobile, it may not yet be time to ‘fully embrace’ the cloud.
