With cloud technology cementing itself in the mainstream of business solutions, should Charities be considering it for their own infrastructure?
While many businesses – and charities – might still be working with an on-premise infrastructure, and thinking it is working well for them, the truth is that the future is well and truly cloud-based. In fact, businesses might not be noticing that on-premise infrastructure has been gradually slowing down their work, and making them less productive. When we spoke with a company that has been providing IT support for Charities for more than a decade, they confirmed that more and more charities are beginning to move to the cloud. One thing in particular to consider is that, since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, many more professionals are now choosing to work remotely, or else expect their employer to offer hybrid / flexible working. This is important to consider because an on-premise infrastructure is not only unsuitable for remote working, but can also pose a security risk.
Benefits of Moving to the Cloud
Cloud migration has never been easier. With many options for public cloud service providers on the market (such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, etc.), charities have plenty of choice. So, what are some examples of the benefits moving to the cloud can bring to charities include…
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Data Security
Most organisations feel that keeping all of their data on-site is the most secure option. However, with the growth in flexible working (i.e. working from home, working on-the-go, etc.) this is no longer a realistic expectation for many organisations – and it would also require staff to share data across multiple devices and multiple networks (which is very unsafe). However, with the cloud, data remains in one place at all times: A centralised environment. Staff can access data as it resides safely in the cloud, so that they can work without risk.
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Easier Maintenance
Cloud environments are incredibly low-maintenance when compared with on-premise IT infrastructures. Smaller charities may not have a large, dedicated team of IT engineers to ensure their infrastructure is running consistently at all times – on the other hand, cloud service providers (like Microsoft Azure) invest millions to ensure that their infrastructure achieves the highest possible level of consistency. According to the company we spoke to that provides IT support Guildford charities rely on, migrating to the cloud can cut down on maintenance time, and give organisations back more time and peace of mind.
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Frequent Updates
When a charity relies exclusively on on-premise infrastructure, it means that they are solely responsible for keeping all of their technology up-to-date. This means investing in new hardware every few years – not to mention installation times – and keeping the software they run on their infrastructure up-to-date. When using cloud environments, much of this maintenance is performed automatically for the user – meaning that organisations get the benefit of the most up-to-date technology without minimal investment.
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Lower IT Costs
As we mentioned in the previous point, much of the critical maintenance that is required for cloud-based infrastructure is performed by the cloud service provider, not the organisations using the cloud. This means that charities can save a lot of billable hours. Furthermore, public clouds are more reliable and consistent (because of the sheer amount of investment they receive). This consistency generally means that the chance of downtime is drastically reduced – and as most businesses will know, downtime = money lost and money spent.
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Business Continuity
As many of the previous points have emphasised already, the cloud represents a great deal of potential cost savings for a charity. Yet another way in which it achieves this is with better business continuity. Disruptions in infrastructure mean disruptions in services – which in turn brings the potential for loss of business. According to the company we spoke to that provides business IT support London charities have used in the past, conventional cloud services take a number of measures to preserve business continuity – such as compute redundancy, data redundancy, and data backups.
