Mweb considers the benefit of Cloud computing

“MWEB’ introduction of uncapped ADSL has led to tumbling connectivity costs, and bandwidth constraints rapidly becoming a distant memory. The playing field has been levelled and South African Business of all sizes are now free to explore the many benefits Cloud computing has to offer. “ . This is the word from Andre Joubert, GM of MWEB Business who points out that in regions like North American and Europe, where abundant bandwidth has been a way of life for many years, Cloud computing is rapidly becoming mainstream.

He cites a recent report, “The Arrival of Cloud Thinking”, by Management Insight Technologies, as proof of this. The report, which is based on a survey of over 400 IT professionals in Europe and North America, clearly indicates that the Cloud as a computing platform is real.

The survey found that over 80 percent of large organisations have at least one cloud service and many use up to six.

Most of these (75%) are collaboration services including hosted email and web conferencing. The Cloud is also widely used for disaster recovery backup and for software services including anti-virus/spam filters.

A growing number of respondents reported that they also host their critical applications in the Cloud – albeit fewer in the public cloud than a private cloud.

The greater popularity of the private Cloud can be attributed to security concerns – but these are being addressed by growing numbers of Cloud vendors.

Most IT executives quizzed said they invested in Cloud initiatives because they believed it saved money; made costs more predictable; improved efficiencies and productivity; and promised greater efficiency, flexibility and scalability.

“There is no question that these same benefits are now within reach of local businesses. We are already seeing increasing interest in our Cloud-based services such as Hosted Exchange, CRM and SharePoint, along with Virtual server hosting and Online backup services. We anticipate that adoption rates will increase as companies become accustomed to life without data caps and similar inhibiting factors,” Joubert concludes.