Questions to Ask

If you’re considering cloud computing for your business, here are some important questions to ponder:

1. Could your business recover if you lost all of the data on your server?
2. Do you keep your server(s) on-site, or do you host it (them) in a data center?
3. Do you have a data recovery plan and what is your downtime cost per hour in the event your server fails or you experience data loss? 
4. If you do backup your data, how long would it take you to restore your data if your server crashed?   How often do you backup your data?
5. Have you created a recoverable active backup of your entire business processes, operating system(s), application programs?   Have you considered using a Disaster prep and recovery service?
6. Do you have a recovery strategy if your business location is not accessible for a period of time?   Do you have a recovery plan for your voice and Internet?
7. Are expensive application costs, upgrades or licenses preventing you from using them or keeping them current?
8. Have you already been hacked?  Are you up to date with your security compliance policies and employee training?   Do you have the expertise, resources and time to keep them current?
   
9. Are you happy with the way your email system is working? Who manages your email system?   How difficult is it to add a new employee?
10. Can you share calendars, documents, etc easily across your organization or with others?
11. Can you afford to hire a full-time IT staff or able to hire a 3^rd party IT company on a consistent basis?   How quickly does your 3^rd party IT firm respond to your needs?
12. Are you going to be replacing any PC’s or laptops soon? Will your applications load on your new hardware?
13. Would the ability to access your desktop from any device and from anywhere be of interest to you?
14. Do you have any content management abilities?   Can you track your employees’ productivity and activities on their computers?
15. Are you “bullet-proof?” Do you have powerful enough firewalls, security protocols, both external and internal intrusion detection to stop malicious attempts to compromise your business?
16. How time-consuming is it to install new software on your machines? Do you struggle with the expense and time to update your software.
17.  Are you able to seamlessly communicate with your customers by phone, email, text or social media?   Are your apps easily accessible from any device or phone?
18. Have you considered remote software usage to avoid the expense, time and maintenance of premise-based software? Would you rather pay a monthly fee for software that never fails, has more functionality and never becomes obsolete?