Cloud services
Which cloud services fit, and which are noise.
Cloud services are software and storage you rent and reach over the internet instead of running on a machine you own. For a small business the useful question is never whether to use the cloud, since email already is. It is which parts genuinely earn their subscription.
What "the cloud" means at small-business scale
The word covers several different things that get sold as one. File storage and sharing, where documents live on somebody else's servers and sync to your devices. Hosted productivity suites, which bundle email, documents and calendars. Line-of-business applications delivered through a browser rather than installed. And infrastructure, which is renting servers outright. That last one is relevant to software companies and rarely to a small business.
The trade is straightforward. You stop being responsible for hardware, patching and physical failure, and you start paying monthly and depending on a connection you don't control. For most small businesses that trade is worth making for email and file storage. It is roughly neutral for a lot of specialist applications. And it is worth a hard look wherever a subscription has renewed for years without anybody asking what it does.
Two things about cloud storage are consistently misunderstood, and both cost people data. The first is that syncing isn't backing up. A synced folder copies a deletion to every device, and it copies ransomware the same way. It protects you against a broken laptop. It doesn't protect you against a mistake. The second is version history. Most services keep previous versions of a file for a limited window. That is genuinely useful. But the window runs out, and it needs switching on rather than assuming.
File storage and sharing
Documents live on somebody else's servers and sync to your devices.
Usually worth it
Hosted productivity
Email, documents and calendars bundled together. You almost certainly already use this.
Usually worth it
Line-of-business apps
The software your trade runs on, delivered through a browser rather than installed.
Depends entirely
Infrastructure
Renting servers outright.
Rarely a small business
How we handle it
Most cloud work needs no hands on hardware, which makes it the clearest case for remote support billed by the quarter-hour.
- 01
Start with what you already pay for
Small businesses routinely carry subscriptions nobody has reviewed. Listing what is being paid for, and what it is actually used for, is often the first saving.
- 02
Separate what belongs in the cloud from what doesn't
Email and shared documents usually benefit. Something depending on a large local file, or on equipment in the building, frequently doesn't.
- 03
Set it up so leaving is possible
Knowing how to get your data out of a service is part of choosing it. Arrangements you can't exit tend to stop being decisions.
Who this is for
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Businesses paying for several overlapping services without a clear picture of which does what, which is more common than it sounds once a company is a few years old.
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Businesses where people work from more than one place, and where emailing documents back and forth has started producing more versions than answers.
Common questions
Answered plainly, and without a discovery call first.
- Is cloud storage a backup?
- Not on its own. A synced folder copies changes in both directions, so deleting a file or encrypting it with ransomware sends that change to every synced copy. That protects you from a failed laptop and not from a mistake or an attack. Many services keep previous versions for a limited period, which helps, but it is a recovery window rather than a backup and it has to be switched on.
- Which cloud services does a small business actually need?
- Almost all benefit from hosted email and a shared file service. Both solve problems every business has. You reach your mail from anywhere, and there is one current copy of a document rather than five. Beyond that it depends entirely on what the business does. The useful exercise is auditing what you already pay for before adding anything new.
- What happens if our internet goes down?
- Anything hosted becomes unreachable, which is the real cost of the trade. It is worth knowing in advance which parts of your day stop. Most file-sync services keep a local copy on the machine. You can carry on editing offline, and it catches up later. Browser-based applications usually can't. A phone hotspot is a reasonable fallback for a short outage.
- Is our data safe with a cloud provider?
- Major providers run security operations far beyond what a small business could staff, so the infrastructure is rarely the weak point. Access usually is. The account that reaches your data is the thing worth protecting. Multi-factor authentication on those accounts matters more than the provider comparison most people spend their time on.
- Can you move us from one service to another?
- Migration work is mostly remote, and how straightforward it is depends on the services involved and how much history you're carrying. What matters is establishing beforehand what comes across intact, what changes format, and what doesn't travel at all, so nothing is discovered mid-move. That scoping happens at the consult.
- How is cloud work billed?
- At the published rates. Remote is $12.50 per fifteen minutes, which suits most cloud work since nothing needs to be touched physically. If something does require hands on a machine, that is $50 an hour on-site or $60 flat rate for pickup. There is no separate consulting rate.
Not sure whether this is what you need?
Describe the problem on the phone. If it isn't something we handle, you will be told.
702-514-0787