1. What’s your internet connection reliability and speed like?

A decent bandwidth – not only your connection reliability, but your provider’s as well! It’s the first thing you need because otherwise it’s like driving a golf cart on the beach – it’s just not going to work! In low bandwidth situations such as satellite, or even low speed mobile broadband, there’s simply not enough bandwidth – resulting in applications operating very slow. You may click a button on the screen but the screen may take seconds to respond…and we all know seconds in the online world seem to take forever!

2. Where is your data stored?

The geographic location of where your data stored (in Australia or overseas) may have a bearing on your client contracts. Various rules and amendments give the US Government permission to access your data if they wish. Now there are all sorts of stipulations that are meant to make this difficult but if they want to see it, they’re going to.
The laws differ for various providers but at the end of the day, the storage provider has access to your data if they so want. I mean, who’s going to read the massive Terms & Agreement anyway? A lot of social media sites have recently come under fire for stipulating that if you post pictures on your site then it’s theirs to use as they please.

3. How secure is your data?

Site security is another big issue. Your data is protected by your secure password and you’re the one that’s responsible for it. That’s all well and good if your password was the only way to access your data. It’s not! How many companies have you read about which have been hacked? And high profile companies as well. That’s because people found a back door to the provider and through that backdoor could access your data. So it’s a bit like have a massively secure front door with guard dogs but on the rear door, you have a cable tie.

Remember the Sony Pictures email hacking scandal? It can happen to anyone…
A lot of people use social media sites for backups of their photos and other files. If these sites get hacked, those photos are made available to anyone and everyone

4. How much does Cloud cost?

The major players have dominated the market in recent years by offering free or low cost storage. They don’t do this because they’re philanthropists! The idea is to flood the market with cheap product then increase the prices.

And increase the prices they have! In July, Microsoft announced a 26% hike in the cost of some of their online services! Additional fees then come into consideration: if you require more memory for your applications, more staff and therefore more users, or even if you use too much traffic in transferring your data….it’s all extra!

5. Do you go public or private for your cloud?

Not everyone wants to have a redundant power system, air conditioning, redundant broadband links and noisy servers in their own office. But at the same time, what do you do if you don’t want your data sitting overseas? Well that’s where the Private Cloud comes into its own.

Private Cloud systems like Winbasic’s offer users the ability to store their systems in country and have them looked after by Managed IT specialists. The data is secure, backed up, operating on redundant systems and you know where it is at all times.

Private cloud can take many forms – your own physical server can be hosted by a private cloud provider or your system can be virtualised and sit in a physical server with other virtual servers. It’s like the cloud equivalent of business or economy class!