If you are a start-up company that does not require intensive computing resources, you can easily design a full office computing network, complete with resilient backups and Disaster Recovery, for both low upfront and monthly cost.
The traditional model of having a server or two in house to serve files mail, security and backups is no longer necessary. There are appliances that serve files, handle your firewall, detect intrusions, filter filtering and secure your computer systems. Most if not all of them, can also be installed as software running in the cloud. Software packages are available that can encrypt and backup your file-server appliance into the cloud (S3, Rackspace, etc), giving you nearly unlimited backup storage medium for extremely low rates. There are software packages that can be installed on every client computer, allowing an external IT person secure access to the computers to fix helpdesk-related issues. Mail service is readily available in the cloud from a variety of providers (e.g. Google, Rackspace etc.).
A hardware failure (e.g. printer, network equipment, computer) or internet connection failing, would be the only event requiring the presence of an IT professional.
What about those that already have the traditional model of a file server in house? Obviously it depends on what is in place, but something like a Windows Small Business Server (now called Windows Essentials), takes special planning. If the server is already virtualized, its image can easily be deployed to an external hosting company to let them manage the hardware and backups. If not, the cost of new hardware capable of supporting a virtualized server would need to be assumed. The other services could still be transitioned off the server box and replaced with various external services (ie: backups to the cloud; mail to Gmail; file server to an appliance or an Amazon EC2 cloud instance etc.).
In the future, I predict that Amazon and other commodity providers will make transitioning these Windows servers to their cloud systems significantly easier. For instance, while Amazon EC2 does allow you to run Windows servers in the cloud, they do not have any seamless transitioning software from server to cloud, nor do they support any version of Small Business Server. If they were able to develop both of those services, I would predict a flood gate of SMB’s transitioning their entire servers to the cloud.
The major crux of transitioning services to other providers outside of your network is your internet connectivity. High-speed internet (Fios, Comcast, T3), is absolutely critical. Since your servers are no longer sitting next to you, you need a faster (and less latent) connection to reach your email, servers, etc.. Also, the more you transition outside of your company, the more critical internet connectivity becomes to your business running. If its critical, you need to spend the money and have a backup internet connection, whether it be the competitor (cable vs, fios) or a cellular connection for your firewall.
So in short, are we at a complete cloud commodity-based computer office network for SMB’s yet? No, but we getting extremely close. Many SMB’s can take advantage of it today to save some serious money and downtime. Contact us today to see how we can help you save IT costs and create a more robust/less IT intensive office.