Cloud Computing Services in Essex

Business cloud backup is where data and applications on a business server are backed up and then stored remotely in the cloud. In the event of a system failure, breach, or natural disaster, a business can access its data and applications in the cloud.

Given the vast amount of information exchanged every day, having business cloud backup makes sense. Needless to say, more and more organisations choose cloud solutions rather than physical disaster recovery solutions.

In part, this is due to the flexibility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of cloud solutions for business.

There are primarily three different business cloud services: public cloud storage, private cloud storage, and hybrid cloud storage.
Primarily, businesses use either private or hybrid cloud solutions.

A private cloud service is a cloud environment used exclusively by one organisation and is usually managed by a third-party IT provider or vendor. This is ideal for companies that need full data control and high-level security.

Hybrid cloud services, on the other hand, involve a combination of public and private cloud storage. Here, critical data is stored in a private cloud, while less sensitive data is contained in the public cloud.

In our opinion, Altaro provides one of the best cloud solutions for businesses, especially SMEs.

We partner with Altaro for all our backup requirements which can provide offsite backup and Disaster Recovery for physical and virtual servers.

Altaro also has a cloud product, which we use to backup customers' mailboxes hosted through Office 365 as well as their OneDrive and SharePoint data.

Cloud backup solutions for business involve sending a copy of a physical or virtual file or database to another off-site location. This secondary location is based in the cloud usually hosted by a third-party service provider, who charges the backup customer a fee. The agreed fee is typically based on storage space needed, bandwidth, number of users, and servers.

There are several options available to businesses, including:
- Backing up directly to the public cloud
- Backing up to a service provider in a managed data centre (Agile has its own data centre in Colchester)
- Cloud-2-cloud backup using SaaS
- Hardware facilitated cloud backup systems

Most business cloud backup subscriptions run yearly or monthly and are used by big and small businesses alike.

For small to medium-sized businesses, Altaro is a great option. It essentially grabs data as and when it is modified to create an almost ‘live’ backup. It ‘watches’ the files and folders at a low level and when a change is made, it replicates the same change to its backup copy while retaining the original file for data retention.

Cloud computing can be used in all areas of the business. From Email to file storage to server hosting and software as a service (SaaS). Mobile Device Management (MDM) Products are often cloud-hosted. This gives businesses a way of managing corporate and BYOD equipment connecting to company data, as well as auditing and protecting their intellectual property.

Essentially, cloud computing services make it easier, cheaper and quicker to run IT business architectures and the key benefits are:
- It significantly reduces IT costs
- Assists with cashflow since cloud computing services are typically subscription-based
- Adds flexibility. Businesses can ‘rent’ IT solutions as and when they need them and are not weighed down by legacy systems
- Scalable. Unlike on-premise solutions, you can scale-up and down more readily depending on demand

In our experience of offering cloud services for business, businesses benefit from becoming far more efficient, and dare we say, agile!