Many businesses across the UK rely on cloud-based services for the day-to-day running of their operations, but they could be taking a gamble by storing too much information in the cloud.
This is the view of Rob Vivian, managing director of telecoms provider Pure Comms, who says too many businesses are guilty of putting all their eggs in one basket when it comes to internet services.
His comments follow recent events where broadband provider BT suffered a major outage across the UK due to a significant amount of its network residing in the cloud.
The outage is believed to be the biggest and widest network failure in years, with several hundred thousand householders and businesses losing internet connection for up to two hours, with some also losing phone connections.
Cloud computing works by storing files on a server out in the internet rather than on a local hardware drive, and this information is accessible on-the-go.
Although the cloud is a convenient and cost-effective way for businesses to access their data, Rob warns of the dangers of solely relying on this to store information.
He comments: “Relying on one route of accessing data puts businesses at a serious disadvantage. As soon as your internet connectivity drops you lose all access to your data, bringing operations to a stand-still and significantly costing businesses in the long-term.
“That’s not to say the cloud can’t be a valuable asset to businesses. By using the cloud, our files can be accessed by all Pure Comms staff in both of our offices via our virtual private network. But we would advise business owners to use the cloud as an addition to local storage, rather than an alternative for it.”
We’ve been in business for five years and have two offices, one just outside of Bristol and one in St Austell in Cornwall.
We work with a number of high-profile clients including Bristol Airport, BWOC, Opus, Computerworld and Redrock Consulting.
