3 services to move to the Cloud

A good few months ago I composed a blog post entitled ‘3 Myths of Moving to the Cloud’, which detailed some common misconceptions many individuals hold surrounding the cloud and stated with a clear viewpoint that perhaps the cloud was not the right decision for every business. Before making any definite decisions on moving services to the cloud it’s imperative to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. So with that in mind, I highly recommend that you give the post a read before continuing on. It can be found, here.

Okay, so you’re still with me! You’ve been swept away with the zeitgeist and you’ve confirmed that it is indeed the right decision for you and your business. Great! Now only one impending question remains; What services would be the most beneficial to move to the cloud?

It’s an important query to muse over and it’s one that I’d like to help you along with. Although it’s tempting to rush through the decision making and migrate absolutely everything to the cloud immediately, it’s not necessarily the smartest choice. I have pinpointed three particular services that optimise the benefits offered by the cloud and minimise any of the disadvantages.

They are:

• Email
• Anti-spam
• Anti-virus

Let’s consider them one-by-one.

Email Hosting

Although burgeoning technology is rapidly changing the landscape of our work lives at an almost unrecognisable rate, there seems to be one constant that for the foreseeable future that will not be going away anytime soon. That is email. Email remains a valuable tool, as valuable as it has ever been for just about all businesses. Implementing a cloud migration for email services will deliver a myriad of benefits helping to enhance this already highly important tool.

So, why should I migrate my email to the cloud?
We now live in an increasingly mobile world, where your work and home life has developed into a sort of revolving door rather than the two entirely separate worlds it once used to be. This has never been clearer than in the development of cloud-based email, where employees have the opportunity to access their emails and data anywhere, anytime, allowing for quick responses.

Security is of the utmost importance with modern cloud email services, these systems are designed from the ground up to keep your information intact and safe from meddling and sabotage. There is no more need to waste time filtering through past emails, attempting to determine which are of importance or not, with a built-in archive solution taking care of those tedious tasks for you. With no need for upgrading, installation or patching required and the ability to allow storage limits to be lifted, it’s certainly a solution for those that feel hindered by the need to think about updates and increases. As for power outages and hardware failures – Never fear! They won’t be much of a problem anymore – with no need for email server backups, you can contently relax that your data is safe and sound in the cloud.

Our recommendation for cloud hosted email is Office 365. If you are interested, find out more about Office 365 migration here

Anti-spam

As most business owners know, there is an unavoidable accompaniment required of the running of a business email account. That is, of course, anti-spam software. The need to mitigate the risk of phishing attacks and attachment of malware is something of utmost importance for any business. A migration of anti-spam software to the cloud could take this vital tool in a more effective and efficient direction.

So, why should I migrate?
Let’s start with an easy selling point; they’re less expensive. Now I’ve got your attention, right?! With no capital investments or upfront costs, no need for software maintenance or update renewals you have the potential to scale up or down as your staffing requires, allowing you to have a very predictable spend. Expenses can also be saved through the form of bandwidth, by filtering out all spam and phishing messages the only emails you will receive are the legitimate ones. This can save you 100s of megabytes per day equating to real cost savings. Putting your confidence in a software such as this has never been easier with the development of smart filters that helps them quickly learn and identify new types of spam, allowing them to be more accurate in its filtering. This results in each user receiving a daily, personal summary of all filtered emails and a quick link releasing any messages that may be a false positive, saving you and your employees valuable time.

Anti-virus

The need for security and malware deterrents for SMBs are not solely isolated to spam protection, as many of you may already know, but also from computer viruses working on a larger scale. Anti-virus software remains an integral part to cyber security on every level.

So, why should I migrate?
Cloud antivirus works with a lightweight agent software on the secured endpoint, all the while burdening the provider’s infrastructure with the bulk of the data analysis, culminating in less strain on the system’s resources by outsourcing the analysis. With the ability to intelligently pool together examinations based on millions of computers in the field, it can use the vast troves of information correlated to detect and block threats earlier than the traditional anti-virus software on offer. As with cloud email and anti-spam software, there is no need to concern yourself with convoluted upgrades, as the software in consistently up to date. PC deployment is, therefore, streamlined and simplified. Corresponding data collected can be used to automatically update a desktop user’s blacklists and whitelists, saving time previously spent on manual updates.

In conclusion

Through migrating any of these three services to the cloud, a multitude of benefits become apparent. Be it increased efficiency, simplicity and effectiveness or a way to lower costs and increase staff productivity, considering a cloud migration of these services is a clear choice. With the hype behind the cloud not looking to slow down anytime soon, there are clear wins your business can benefit from, despite the hyperbole. It may be the right time for your business to finally make the switch.

For any further information on the potential of cloud-based email, anti-spam or anti-virus don’t hesitate to give us a call on 03 9044 4767.