For the past five years, the buzz phrase ‘cloud computing’ has slowly been gathering pace.

In simple terms, cloud computing is the transfer of computer programs and applications from your device to the internet.

All calculations, processes etc. are no longer carried out on your device, but remotely – or in other words, ‘in the Cloud’.

It may not have taken off as quickly as some expected or hoped, but it is slowly but surely changing the way we interact with IT.

If you’ve been toying with the idea of switching to Cloud computing in some capacity, here’s four key points as to why the move might make sense for you:

• Low Costs:Instead of paying for computer components that rarely get put to use, you only pay for what you use.A good example of this is in web hosting, where hosting companies now offer ‘pay-as-you-use’ solutions, where you only pay for the hardware resources you actually use, which is cheaper than buying a non-scalable slice of computing power to run your website on.

• Improved Security: Instead of protecting your own data, cloud storage providers are far more likely to have the financial resources to protect their data centres with the latest technologies including retina-scans and even bomb-proof security.Data is likely to be mirrored – or stored on more than one device – so that it is protected from hardware failure.All of this can be done on your local hardware, but is relatively far more expensive and a drain of time and financial resources for your organisation.

• Improved FlexibilityOne of the major features of cloud computing is scalability. Instead of being confined to the resources of one machine, cloud computing enables you to use multiple pieces of hardware as needed, all working on your task for as long as it takes. This makes it far easier to complete hardware intensive tasks such as computer simulations quicker, or if using cloud hosting, it allows your website to deal with large influxes of traffic without slowdown.

• Increased Mobility:Using cloud storage means that all your devices can access content on the go. If you edit a document on your desktop in the office, you can pick up where you left off on your laptop in the local coffee shop, or on your tablet at home.This also enables you to avoid transferring files and information via USB devices, thus increasing the security of your information as it cannot be physically stolen or misplaced during the transfer.

If you’re interested in switching to the Cloud, give us a call to discuss how we can help.