As workers stayed at home and businesses continued to run during the second lockdown a new infrastructure was needed – the private cloud.
It goes without saying that it’s been a challenging year for business owners. One of the biggest challenges has been how rapidly businesses needed to switch to widespread homeworking. While workers have risen to the occasion, some IT systems have been under significant strain. A private cloud could be the solution for SMEs looking for an agile, scalable architecture that supports remote working.
What is a private cloud?
We’re all used to the cloud as a concept and many people use services such as Drop Box as a backup for important files. A private cloud is similar in concept, but the key difference is that it is a private environment where the software is managed by the company’s IT. The company has full control of the solution via a management platform and can install all required software and services needed to run the business from within this cloud. A company can request as much capacity as they require, which means that all services currently running on hardware and a secure backup can be moved into the cloud with less redundancy and therefore lower costs.
Is a private cloud secure?
The private cloud is much more secure than public cloud services and the key difference is that each company has control over their security settings. Where a private cloud will have standardised requirements, such as password protection and possibly two-factor authentication, all security measures within a private cloud can be set up exactly to the company’s requirements. This can be managed in-house or JSPC can provide guidance based on your business model and requirements.
How is the private cloud maintained?
If you’re used to maintaining servers for your IT infrastructure, you may wonder how the solution is maintained when there is no hardware in your office. The private cloud uses virtualisation to take data from servers in secure data centres and into shared pools for use on company devices such as laptops and tablets. If there’s a hardware failure in the data centre, the chances are that you’ll never even know that it’s happened because the data centre will switch to a different server with no interruption in services. This is one of the ways the private cloud helps to reduce infrastructure costs because as well as the cost of the hardware itself, which will need frequent upgrades, there is the staff time required to monitor and maintain the hardware. If you’ve been working through lockdown with technicians being called back in to the office to address issues with the servers, the benefits of outsourcing to a private cloud environment become even clearer.
What happens if my business grows?
Another positive regarding the private cloud is that it is completely scalable. That means that while a company only needs to purchase the capacity needed, this can be quickly scaled up if the business grows. The flexibility of the private cloud is one of the many reasons why more and more businesses are switching to the private cloud and it’s particularly valuable for SMEs looking to cut costs and become more agile after this challenging year.
Find out more about the JSPC Private Cloud solution, designed specifically for SMEs.