Best Private Cloud Server – Provider Comparsion
Cloud Solutions: What Should Startups Consider?
Digitization and the ever-increasing migration of enterprise data and applications to the cloud are the growth drivers of an economy that is becoming more efficient, global and flexible. Globally distributed teams, flexible working hours, central data collection and analysis: these are just some of the benefits of the cloud. But the cloud also has a dark side.
A company that wants to keep pace in the long term must be able to react to global trends and retain the best and brightest minds. The cloud is indispensable for this. Experts, politicians and trade magazines all agree on this.
At the same time, the new data centralization also increases the susceptibility to cybercrime. That’s why startups in particular should make sure they use a secure cloud environment to protect their data. After all, data loss can mean the end for young companies.
The Cloud Is Easy – For Working In A Team, But Also For Data Thieves
A disgruntled employee deletes the data of hundreds or even thousands of customers of a cloud provider and takes their servers offline. Another sells data from customer databases. An online password manager loses the passwords of high-ranking company representatives. Security cameras are open to everyone on the Internet and open a wide gate into the corporate network.
Even governments engage in industrial espionage under the guise of counter-terrorism. Hackers influence elections and the media. These are all consequences of centralized data storage in the cloud. Can this networked world still be kept under control at all? And above all: What can a small company do that somehow has to keep up?
One thing is clear: centralizing the cloud, i.e. concentrating computing and storage capacities on a few providers such as Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure), poses enormous risks. The cloud services that have gone online in recent years rarely run on the provider’s servers. In most cases, the applications are run on servers from large providers and the data is therefore also passed on there.
Startups quickly fall back on simple solutions such as Google Drive, Dropbox and Co. In addition to the simple operation, the free offers are also attractive. But nobody knows in which data center the data is actually stored and how well it is maintained. And above all: Who has access to it. Centralization increases the number of access points.
The fact that the access to the respective folder is regulated and the employees can be granted different accesses is by far not sufficient protection. After all, who knows which employee is in the data center and what security measures are taken there against hackers? As we move into the cloud, we increasingly lose control over the whereabouts and security of our data.
Private Cloud: Take Advantage Of The Cloud To Minimize Risk
Peak loads can be quickly balanced out, and storage space can grow with the amount of data. These are the arguments often put forward in favor of centralizing the cloud. But startups should ask themselves whether they need this fast scalability at all. According to a study by Forsa, more than three-quarters of companies do not need the flexibility and scalability of the cloud at all. And whether there are ways to take advantage of the flexibility of large data centers without sacrificing privacy.
One way is to centralize and then decentralize. This does not mean a return to complicated servers configured by administrators on site in error-prone manual work via a console. Instead, solutions are created that combine the benefits of local infrastructure with the capabilities of large data centers.
Even if a company’s core technology has to scale as much as possible, there are always internal systems that do not require these factors, but benefit all the more from the outstanding level of privacy. On-site hardware can be centrally managed through unified software and new approaches, achieving the same levels of simplicity, flexibility and security as the public cloud. At the same time, the private cloud reduces costs and, above all, control over the data remains in one’s own hands.
With such solutions, all applications required in the company can be operated locally: Document synchronization, collaboration, warehousing, time recording and much more. Sensitive company data remains within the company, and no third parties have access to it.
What Startups Should Consider When Selecting Private Clouds
Startups that scale often face major infrastructure challenges. Not only orders and revenue are growing, but also the number of employees, the complexity of processes and the amount of data. That’s why startups should make a conscious decision when selecting private cloud solutions to opt for a solution that can accompany scaling and can be flexibly expanded.
Not only vertically, but also horizontally, your own cloud has to scale: Which programs and processes are used regularly in the company? Are there private cloud solutions that already cover a large part of this or are easily expandable?
Document management, customer care, task management, time tracking, warehousing, project management, shared calendars and emails and much more. The list of things small businesses already need is long. Cloud services are available for all these needs. These cost monthly, often per user. The costs increase exponentially. But what is even more dangerous for growth is that many cloud services are isolated silos.
If you run up against their limits or have to add further applications, they usually don’t work together and make an expensive complete move necessary. It’s not uncommon for people to sit around typing data from system A to system B day after day. And then the employees also have different login names and passwords everywhere. This means a management effort and another considerable security risk.
Open source software is also available for all corporate needs. This is available free of charge, can be easily extended through the open source approach and is usually much more secure. If the company grows, you can conclude support contracts with the manufacturer and add enterprise functions.
Some important questions when choosing solutions: Do these interfaces offer intelligent connectivity? Is a central user administration possible in which the services can be integrated? Can the project management communicate with the ERP system and the online shop to coordinate a product launch? If these connections are missing, manual matching of the data is required.
In the rarest of cases, this pays off and usually quickly takes over. If, on the other hand, systems work together, productivity in the company increases.
Regardless of which solution a founder chooses, one should always ask oneself: Where exactly is the data located? And there’s a good feeling when you know for sure: two meters away in your own office and not in the “cloud”, which is ultimately just a stranger’s computer.
If you’re searching for the best Windows or Linux private cloud server – on this page you find the most reliable services with the highest standards, best pricing and excellent customer service. We try to keep this private cloud service comparison always up to date.