How Cloud Services Give Your Small Business A Complete Technology Solution

The success of your small business depends on its products, services and customer support. That is where the focus of your staff should be. But your business also relies on technology in various areas, which takes time and attention away from your staff. Cloud computing began as an easy way to share expensive applications with other companies. It has now evolved as a way to provide you with support in all of your technology needs. Here is how cloud services keeps your staff focused on those core business areas critical to your company's success.

A Three-Tiered Approach to Support

Your business relies on hardware components and software to grow and stay competitive. If technology is part of your research and development, you need access to another level of the technology. Cloud services provide support in each of these areas so you don't need to maintain your own technology infrastructure or dedicate your staff to the support of it. You can choose to have as little or as much involvement in your technology as you wish by using these three layers of cloud services.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

At this level, your company shares hardware with other companies. This includes the computer servers, network servers, and storage devices that your company needs. Access to this equipment is through high speed connections from your office so the only hardware you need to maintain are the desktop and laptop computers used by your staff.

This minimizes the use of your business capital because you'll use your expense budget for this tier of cloud services. The vendor providing the services will maintain all of the hardware components, including the repair and replacement of devices. You'll have access to the latest hardware without the need to allocate staff or capital funds to it.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

This level allows you to share applications with other companies. You'll have access to the latest software, which may be too expensive for you to use otherwise. The cloud vendor's staff maintains the application upgrades and patches, which are time-consuming tasks. Again, your staff is free to focus on your products, services and customers and not be taken away to troubleshoot and fix software problems.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

If developing software is part of your small business, then you need access to expensive technology for design, development and testing. This level of cloud services gives you shared access to hardware and software to support that part of your business.

Cloud Services Support

Besides these three tiers of support, your business has access to various levels of customer support available to you from the cloud vendor. These can include:

  • daily monitoring of system and application usage for capacity management
  • infrastructure planning services when your business is ready to grow
  • customer service to address such items as software questions or password changes
  • training of new staff on the applications that your business uses

These services also reduce your staff's involvement in the support of your technology so they can stay focused on those core business functions that make your company stand out from your competition. For more information, contact a company like New York IT Service Inc.


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