January Blues?

I thought it was really time, now that we're well into January, that I wrote some ramblings on my thoughts for 2012. Apparently this is the most depressing week of the year, so I'll try to be a bit more positive!

One of the really exciting things from my perspective is that a lot of commentators are predicting that this will be the year when Cloud Computing really takes off. 2011 I guess was the time where it entered the mainstream consciousness, so will 2012 see everyone moving their business systems to The Cloud?

Well, here's the thing. There is still a lot of scepticism out there around whether putting all of your key business information systems in a data centre somewhere is a sensible thing to do. The worry is that if your internet connection goes down, you lose access to everything. If you have a server in your office and you lose access to the internet, you can still open documents, schedule jobs etc. Not only that, but you need fast internet for things to work.

Well now this is true, and certainly for those with unreliable or slow internet connections (which is still quite a problem in rural areas), it would certainly be a worry. But for the rest of us, network speeds are improving and BT's rollout of their 21CN (21st Century Network) is leading to a national broadband network that is much more reliable and fault tolerant. When did your internet last go down, and how long for?

The other concern is often cost, because people compare the cost of a hosted office server, for example, with a bit of physical kit in their office and in some cases find the hosted option costs more. These costs are coming down of course, and you should also be considering what exactly you need. The benefit of a Cloud server is that you should be able to pay just for what you use, rather than having a whole powerful machine sitting idle most of the time. So it's up to hosting companies and consultants like me to help our customers make the right choices.

Also never underestimate the value of not having to worry about things like backup, and being able to access everything from anywhere if you can't get to your office. I was recently talking to our hosting partner, Dudobi, about virtual disaster recovery sites. While traditionally having a DR solution meant having real hardware and desks on standby at prohibitive costs, you can now have your data sync'd to a virtual backup server, with virtual desktop computers ready to be brought online for staff forced to work from home or serviced offices. Since you're really only paying for storage and a little data sync (which is pretty cheap), this can work out at just a few hundred pounds a year, and then an hourly charge if you have to use it.

So I think it's very exciting that these facilities are within the reach of even very small businesses, and I do think that 2012 will be the year where business people start to see the benefits from them.

I am optimistic then. And yes, it's cold and grey now, but in a few weeks the daffodils will start coming out and we'll all start to feel like spring!