Networking Delaware - Your business IT Partner

• Then there is the "Full Cloud". In this model servers are created, on demand, at a data center "somewhere" and users access their data remotely, usually through a browser or dedicated client software. While relatively secure, you really have very little control over your data which may even exist in several geographically diverse locations. If some portion of the Internet connection between you and your data goes off-line, you have no access to that data until the connection is reestablished.

While almost all cloud providers offer a "Service Level Agreement" (SLA) that promises over 99.9% uptime, they have no such responsibility if the outage is at your end or at any one of dozens of major data paths called backbones. One errant backhoe scoop somewhere and you can be down for who knows how long?. Also, data backup can be problematic since it is difficult to verify backup success or failure. Then again, just how secure IS your data anyway? You don't truly know for sure.

On the plus side, most of your I.T. budget can move from CapEx to Operations with the obvious tax advantages. Also, since most of the computing power exists on the cloud servers, this eliminates the need for powerful workstations. You can access it from almost anywhere on almost any platform. Since software licensing is via subscription, there is no big outlay for software and no concerns about licensing audits and the associated problems. Software updates are automatically applied so your system is always up-to-date.

Just How Reliable Is The Cloud?

Last year outages hit cloud hosting companies with regularity, creating a sense that they are no longer extraordinary events, but rather a normal part of the cloud computing business model.

Best practices now call for customers to enter into redundant service contracts to ensure backup service.

Wouldn't it be great if you could have the advantages of cloud computing without the downside of data control and system availability issues? Guess what… you can.

• This brings us to the third "cloud" model; Hybrid Cloud Computing.

Continued outages have contributed to the feeling that businesses shouldn't put their core assets in a public cloud, and as a result, many cloud vendors in 2012 ramped up sales of hybrid cloud services, enabling companies to manage their own private clouds.

With a hybrid cloud you get all the benefits of I.T. by subscription, yet most of the hardware and software remains at your location on our equipment: No capital expense of hardware or software outlay. No licensing issues. No software upgrades to worry about. No connectivity issues. If your LAN is up, your system is up. All the tax advantages of the cloud are yours since this is pure operating expense, not capital investment.

Need to hire a few interns for the summer? No problem… just create new users. In the Fall, delete the unneeded users. You bill goes back to what it was before. Business conditions change and you need to lay off a few folks… your bill gets smaller. Need line of business software for only a few months a year? No problem. We turn it on when you ask and turn it off when you no longer need it. Next year the data is right there, where you left off.

You are only paying for what you consume. The hardware is automatically replaced every three years so you never have to "make do". The software is updated whenever updates become available, so you never have to "make do". The server is maintained remotely, by us, so you never have to "make do" with poor service.

We have found that many businesses dive right into the full cloud model, only to pull back to the Hybrid Solution as soon as problems arise. Because of this we have decided to offer and support our Hybrid Cloud Solution exclusively. We feel the advantages so far outweigh the disadvantages that it is the only reasonable model to pursue.

Since the success or failure of such a business model is totally dependent on the rock-solid performance of the hardware and software, we have decided to partner with the Intel Corporation to bring your our Networking Delaware Hybrid Solution.

Intel is the company that makes almost all of the processors, motherboards and chipsets used in servers anyway, so why not go with the experts?

Servers, Operating System software, line-of-business software, productivity suites, security products and most anything else you need for your network, running up-to-date in a subscription environment for a small monthly fee that is completely tax deductible. What could be better than that?