Rushing to the Cloud can sometimes be a mistake and cost organizations a lot of money. Knowing if the Cloud is the right move before you make it, can be very valuable.
I've often heard people say their move to the Cloud was a mistake and they are paying a lot more than they had anticipated; not to mention their cost will probably continue to go up.
The first and most important question to ask is "Where do you want your data?". Do you want your data In your house or, someone's house? If the answer is my house, Cloud computing may not be the right move. Again, depending on the environment, on-premise servers can save money and still allow secure access remotely.
Start out with a proper needs analysis and define your goals. Proper analysis of an organizations current technology environment and their future requirements will help determine costs and timeless for meeting those goals.
Consider your facilities Internet and electrical infrastructure? If your key operational staff works from a central office, then having more than one Internet Service Provider is important. If your primary Internet goes down, a firewall with failover technology will direct the traffic to the secondary Internet connection. With one Internet connection there will be downtime.
Power failures can cause downtime as well. Local devices such as firewalls, routers, servers, and workstations need to be powered back up and your technology provider may need to assist.
Cost is always a key factor to any organization and technology comes at a cost. Comparing Cloud server costs to On-premise servers will help you determine your technology platform.
