In the world of data storage, cloud computing is relentlessly gaining ground, pushing back whatever influence the various types of local file storage have garnered over the years and establishing itself as the king of data storage.
According to Brendan Wilde, Marketing Manager at at Umbrellar Cloud Hosting, NZ’s largest web host, “At the rate that the cloud has been adopted, the next decade or two can usher in a generation whose businesses rely solely on the cloud for file storage.”
While many business-people today are availing their companies of the benefits of cloud storage, some others stand on the fence in ambivalence. Then there is the third group of people that are either adamant or benighted.
If you are among the first category, then you are, to an extent, already conversant with the benefits the online storage system offers you—even so, you might find the list below enlightening. If you, on the other hand, are part of the latter categories, then here is what you get from cloud storage.
● Cost
If you, or your company, handle a substantial amount of data daily, the costs of hoadsting and maintaining your own storage server can easily dent your finance. Think about the increased power consumption and thus heavy power bills.
When you also consider that you may end up not using your local storage system to it capacity, you begin to see how the online storage system–where you only pay for the space you use and don’t incur maintenance, repair, and power consumption costs—is more cost-efficient.
Additionally, cloud storage spares you the cost of hiring an IT staff.
● Physical Space
With the cloud, you don’t have to waste valuable space in your office building to house on-premises servers. The only form of physical presence required is the computer or mobile devices on which you access your cloud.
● Accessibility
This ranks among the foremost benefits of online storage. You mustn’t always be in the office to access, save, or backup your files. The cloud can easily be accessed from anywhere and on any device, so far as you have an internet connection on the device. And you can create a new file, save it, or run a backup while on a bus going home.
● Synchronisation
The cloud doesn’t only allow you access to your files from anywhere or on any device, it also ensures that the latest versions of your files are synced across all your devices. Therefore, you can easily save an unfinished work on your office computer at the end of the day and continue your work on the file using your personal computer as soon as you get home, without any need to carry a physical storage device around.
● Sharing and Collaboration
If you have ever tried to share a heavy file via email, then you understand the frustration that comes with waiting for it to upload or your email provider telling you the file is too large. With the cloud, sharing that same file will be as easy as a few quick clicks.
Also, with the cloud, multiple people can work on the same file, share ideas, add notes, or edit the file, and the presentation is seamless, without you having to worry about who made what change or tracking the most recent version.
● Security
With a local storage system, your data is easily liable to security risks—theft, viruses, fire outbreak, hardware manhandling et cetera. These could all lead to data loss, which has crippled many businesses in the past.
Online storage services, on the other hand, employ numerous security strategies to ensure your data is always safe. For instance, your data is always encrypted, even during transmission, and it is backed up on multiple servers to minimise the chances of data loss.
Also, before a provider can offer cloud computing services, they have to meet certain requirements set by bodies like HIPAA.
The bottom line is that your data is safer on the cloud than on an in-house server or other local storage devices.
● Backup Automation
The most disturbing issue businesspeople and other consumers encounter when it comes to backing up their data is automation. Some days you remember to back your files up, while some other days something comes up and you forget to follow up with the routine.
With the cloud, however, you can easily skip the tedious process and select what you want backed up and how often the backup should occur. Backups can even happen as soon as you create or make changes to a file.
● Recovery
This is a gem with respect to the benefits of cloud storage. With your data consistently backed up on multiple servers, a problem from your end—you mistakenly deleted your files, for instance—becomes easily solvable.
You only have to restore your backups and you are up and running again with minimal downtime.