In December 2010 Bucan Holdings, the owner and operator of Host1, one of Australia’s most experienced hosting providers, announced the formation of BitCloud, a company providing cloud services for small to medium businesses. Bennett Oprysa, Bucan’s chief executive, explains why SMBs are turning to the cloud as a means of gaining control over IT costs and why cloud services are a natural evolution for hosting providers.
Define “cloud computing”.
Wikipedia says cloud computing is “location-independent computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand”. For BitCloud, this means the provision of services ranging from application and collaboration software through to disaster recovery solutions and computing and storage-on-demand. Or in other words, Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
What does cloud computing offer?
Flexibility, scalability, reliability, performance and most of all, affordability. SMBs have struggled with IT costs for decades. Deciding when to invest and how much to install are difficult decisions. Cloud computing means companies can easily access computing resources as and when they need them.
They get the benefits of a dedicated server at a fraction of the cost of deploying and maintaining their own infrastructure.
They don’t have to find the money to invest upfront in hardware and software, and they don’t have to fund the IT skills and personnel that an in-house capability would otherwise demand. Administration is reduced and there are benefits from the provider’s economies of scale. It’s a compelling argumentfor most business owners, but particularly so for anyone involved with a SMB.
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