How to tackle cloud computing

I need to become more innovation savvy and would like to invest in some good cloud computing software to store our company's data. How should I go about this?''

A: Cloud computing is an IT technology gaining momentum world-wide. Cloud computing effectively outsources parts of your IT structure and has a number of benefits including allowing IT to focus on providing solutions and technology to your business. Another benefit is that costs associated with cloud-based IT services are operational in nature so there's no need for capital investment and fixed cost structures. Added to this data volumes continue to grow exponentially creating problems for data back-ups and archiving.

Availability & Reliability - ensure the provider has a Service Level Agreement that looks right for your business needs. Do they have a track-record of continuity. Do they have the processes and procedures expected from a cloud-based provider?

The cloud data is entrusted to a third party

Security - in the cloud data is entrusted to a third party and your data may be stored along with data from other businesses and you will need to make sure legal and regulatory requirements can be met and that your perspective provider has a track-record of maintaining high levels of data security.

Data mobility - you will want to ensure that if circumstances change you can make a move to another provider without risk to your data and/ or your business operations.

Cloud computing continues to gain momentum and the recent earthquakes have resulted in more businesses looking at the cloud to provide solutions to their IT needs. A robust process of due-diligence on perspective providers will enable you to gain the comfort to make the move to cloud-computing with confidence.