Cape Town, 01 Mar 2016
Procuring a server can be compared to buying a vehicle. You think you're going to need a bus to carry lots of people every day between point A and B, but after one year, your business requirements change. In fact, you now need a faster, smaller vehicle to get various staff members to several locations.
With a traditional server, you have set your path pretty early on and will need to go through a costly process to get back on the right path. Also, just like with vehicles, servers need to be constantly serviced and maintained in order to keep them running smoothly. The older they get, the more attention they require and very quickly become out of date from a functionality perspective.
How much is your business forking over for onsite servers?
The best way to calculate how much your business spends on onsite servers is to take a look at direct costs, indirect costs and hidden costs.
Direct costs: These are costs linked to any hardware required such as the actual server, software, backup costs, the server room, air conditioning, heating or ventilation equipment, server room security systems, access control systems, network cabling, etc. Also remember that on average, businesses replace their server hardware every three to five years.
Indirect costs: These are costs that relate to salaries you pay, like an IT outsourced company or an IT system administrator who monitors and fixes problems. Included in that is any training that IT staff need to administer the server, and server security software (which will require software licences that need to be renewed annually).
Hidden costs:
* Electricity costs;
* Insurance costs;
* Costs associated with server downtime; and
* Any costs associated with sub-optimal performance that causes people to waste time or work slower.
"In our hyper-connected world, the onsite server is quickly becoming obsolete and so is traditional IT support," says Justin Trent, CEO of Alto Africa.
The move away from traditional servers is also creating a shift in the traditional IT support market. "Local/trusted" IT providers have heavily relied on the fact that servers are specialised, business-critical company assets that not only need to be procured through them, but also maintained, upgraded and replaced by them. Removing the server removes this requirement and places the power straight back in the hands of the business owner.
And this is why Alto Africa created an all-in-one cloud solution that covers everything a small business needs from its IT: Cloudbox. With the advent of good quality Internet at good pricing, there's no barrier to getting rid of that server. "By choosing a Cloudbox subscription, you take what could have been a significant up-front investment for the replacement of an office server and transform it into an affordable monthly expense that can be scaled in line with your needs," Trent adds.
Benefits of replacing the server with cloud services:
* It's economical - you can save up to 50% or more on TCO.
* No more hardware and software maintenance.
* Work from anywhere, any time.
* It's safer (more so than your current set-up, because Alto Africa's servers live in a highly secure data centre).
* It's reliable and inherently offers disaster recovery.
Cloudbox has a very simple and easy migration strategy that ensures downtime is kept to an absolute minimum, allowing you to continue with business as usual while Alto Africa gets your data into the cloud.
Call the company on 021 201 1351 or email sales@cloudbox.co.za for more information.
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