Everything in life ages, and whilst some things get better with each passing year (like that bottle of wine or whiskey that you have stored away in a cupboard), technology does not.
There comes a point in every business that you need to upgrade – roughly every 3-4 years. Even though this isn’t a frequent disruption, you do start to ask yourself whether the upgrades are necessary and wonder how long you can postpone the inevitable.
However, pushing it further and further away only makes the pains so much greater, for your business, your employees and your customers.
Usually, when you start to see these “symptoms”, or if you have had your server for more than 5 years, it means that your hardware needs a refresh.
Combine all of these issues together and your business can face serious downtime, which can be detrimental to your business. When it comes hardware upgrades, the cost of the refresh versus the cost of downtime annually is vital and often factored into planning and budgeting.
However, there is a simpler and much more cost-effective solution available on the market.
Transitioning from legacy hardware into a private cloud network can be concerning. The risk of losing data during the transfer, downtime and performance issues are all factors that could happen at the start.
But if you can find the right provider that can:
Then you have nothing to worry about. Change is always difficult, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a bad thing.
Moving into a cloud environment can benefit every business, despite the fact that each company is unique and have their own terms of IT requirements and configurations. Here are 6 ways in which moving to the cloud is better than yet another hardware upgrade.
With a local on-site server, you will need to pay for the upfront costs every 3-4 years, as well as any patch updates or maintenance issues. Whereas in the cloud, you will switch to a monthly subscription, almost like having a Netflix subscription for your business (minus the thousands of movies and TV shows).
You will have a lower up-front cost and will no longer need to worry about future hardware warranties or payments, in which your licensing is covered by your provider.
Yes, you did read that correctly, anywhere! With a cloud environment, you have the capability to flexibly work any location at any given time, as long as your device has an internet connection.
The best thing about Citadel’s hosted desktop is that when working, wherever that may be, you are protected in the Citadel bubble. You can find out more about that here.
When working on a local server, you will either have to use VPNs or RDPs to connect into your office space, otherwise you are constrained to working in the office.
If you decide to upgrade your legacy hardware every 3-4 years, it doesn’t mean that your on-going IT maintenance tasks will disappear. Whenever a software upgrade, patch or replacement needs to be made, this will add-on additional costings to your server.
When you transition to the cloud, your provider will take care of all of these, managing all hardware lifecycle tasks going forward, thus eliminating further hardware expenditure.
Every business should have a prevention plan in place in case disaster strikes, such as a data breach. The best way to do this is through regular backups of your server. With a local server, you can schedule these yourself, however, it takes time, effort, and planning to do so.
With a cloud solution like Citadel’s hosted desktop, you will have daily backups of your company data, stored in secure ISO 27001:2013 certified data centres.
When migrating over to Citadel Technology, we make it our responsibility to protect your business data.
An on-site server can constrain your business, which can be negative if your business expands, in which you would struggle to store all the data. If this were true, then you would need to purchase additional storage for your server or buy a new server much earlier than anticipated.
With a cloud environment, you have the ability to scale up and down on your storage, which comes in handy if your business has seasonal spikes in usage and traffic. For example, if you are coming up to a new tax year, then you may require extra capacity for your clients.
Cloud computing enables businesses to grow and to define a unique culture. By removing an in-house server and legacy hardware, you have the ability to downsize your office.
Also, when you move to the cloud, you no longer have to pay to power on-premise servers, which can help to significantly reduce your monthly energy bills.
A research study from 2020 showed that the average employee loses 24 days of worktime a year, which costs a business around £4,186 per employee every year. Now, if that is the average time for one employee, then for a company of 20 people it would be costing them £83,720 per year.
This price is not from legacy hardware alone, but also software, technology delays and admin roles – but we will go into more details about that in our next articles (so keep your eyes peeled)!
That being said, outdated hardware is costing your business thousands a year. Contribute this to the upfront costs and on-going maintenance fees, as well as the constraints to grow your business, moving to the cloud could highly benefit your business and its future.
Before moving to the cloud, perhaps ask yourself these questions:
If you answer yes to any one of these questions, then you need a solution that is flexible, secure, and reliable to your business needs. With Citadel hosted desktop, we are capable of building a bespoke solution fitted to you, that is backed up by IT experts with a committed support desk.
Our team are here to find a solution that works for you. We are passionate about IT and care about business solutions that just work.
Or contact us and a friendly team member will be more than willing to help!