What Local Businesses Need To Know About Moving To The Cloud

It’s Time for Canadian Business to Embrace Cloud Migration

By overcoming fears about housing data on the cloud, Canadian companies can gain lucrative benefits. Consider consulting with a third-party migration specialist.  

Business visionaries often find the idea of moving to the cloud, both enticing and disconcerting. The notion that your valuable data will be housed in this abstract storage space seems somehow inherently vulnerable. At the same time, entrepreneurs are not deaf to the cost-effective benefits of the cloud.

If you are a decision-maker trying to come to terms with your fear and desire about the cloud, it’s time to consider a commonsensical way to move forward. There are tried-and-true benefits to utilizing such advanced technologies for goal-achievement. These are things you should know about moving to the cloud.

Fear of Losing Physical Control

Small and mid-sized organizations enjoy what may be a false sense of security about storing data on in-house networks. They generally believe that company oversight automatically delivers enhanced stability. After all, your team is physically near these computers and devices to effect updates and house-cleaning measures. And unauthorized people are not allowed to touch them.

Perhaps Forbes stated this fear the best in Overcoming Fear Of The Cloud: “Vendors derisively refer to people who are nervous about not being able to visit their machines as ‘server huggers,’ but this obscures the limits that one lives under in the cloud. You cannot do anything you want to a machine in the cloud. You cannot get the disk that crashed and send it to a data recovery service. You cannot control the hardware in an unlimited manner.”

That type of thinking made sense before the vast majority of Information was digitized. Today’s reality is that businesses can be remotely accessed from anywhere on the planet. Not only is that true, but it’s also necessary for your mobile agility success. The idea of physical control has gone the way of the dinosaur. Control now means having determined cybersecurity policies and protocols in place.

Fear of Getting Hacked

Cybersecurity fears about moving to the cloud have been greatly exaggerated. The cloud can be a responsible way to house and access data securely. Business leaders should know that you are not required to move every piece of information to the cloud. If uploading personal or financial records makes you uncomfortable, you can house them in a network that delivers peace of mind.

According to Cybercrime Magazine, 19 million Canadians were hacked in 2019, and “more than 90 percent of all cyberattacks are initiated by phishing.” Being on or off the cloud would make no difference to the most prevalent scam.

Regarding the files you do decide to shift to the cloud, a managed IT specialist can outline the determined controls available and implement them to provide enhanced cybersecurity. The actual risk of a breach is failing to have the top-tier cybersecurity measures in place. Cybercriminals tirelessly surf the internet looking for organizations with subpar defenses and harvest the low-hanging fruit. Whether you are on the cloud or sitting in your office makes little difference.

Fear You Cannot Access Information

It’s essential to keep in mind that the cloud is an internet-driven invention designed to deliver 24-7 access to files. Not only does the cloud allow authorized users to review data in real-time, but you can also bring mobile devices into the loop as well. This is a rare type of business agility that would be increasingly difficult to garner from in-house computers. That’s one of the enticing aspects of using the cloud. Of course, such endpoint access must be tempered by defined cybersecurity measures.

Fear of Increased Expenses

Any CEO or entrepreneur who has been working with technology for more than a decade has probably had a lousy cost experience. We can all recall the rollout of new platforms and devices that were marketed as cost-savings moves. Later, we all found out about glitches and patches while suffering technology headaches. These sometimes expensive tech buys didn’t pan out.

Fortunately, the innovators at the cloud understand precisely that dysfunction. That’s why small and mid-sized outfits often utilize the cloud as pay-as-you-go customers. This strategy allows decision-makers to upgrade or lower their cloud bandwidth and minimize waste routinely. The data you opt to place in the cloud could be only that necessary for mobile productivity or profit-driving tasks. Of course, going all-in is an option as well. The point is that you control costs and define the benefits.

How to Embrace the Cloud and Enjoy its Benefits

Perhaps the best way to move forward with a strategy is to connect with a third-party IT partner that has expertise in cloud migration. Schedule a consultation and determine whether this industry professional takes the time to listen carefully and understands your short- and long-term operational goals. Outsourcing your cloud strategy with an outfit that can deliver ongoing oversight and work seamlessly with in-house team members tends to be a cost-effective business relationship worth pursuing.