MICROSOFT



With cloud-hosting, you save on the infrastructure and maintenance of your solution by outsourcing it to CWA. Rather than investing in servers and support staff, these services are rented via Microsoft's Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) from CWA, delivered to your location over the internet, and paid for as a monthly subscription.
This option is relatively more affordable, faster to deploy, and enables your business to focus on business outcomes rather than technical configuration.If you are considering a new business solution, chances are you’ve asked yourself the question, “Should I buy more servers or move to the cloud?”With all the hype around the cloud these days, you are most likely aware of many of the common factors to consider when evaluating your business needs.

Many companies often refer to the following factors:
  • Security
  • Internal IT resources
  • Power consumption costs
  • Cooling
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Backups
  • Reliability (server up-time)
  • Budget forecasting for future infrastructure or storage needs
  • Scaleability
  • Improve CAPEX budgets

With so many things to consider, this brings us to another question:

“How do I prioritize these factors and decide which are most important for my business?”
We’ve helped many Microsoft clients work through these very questions and assessed their business needs, functionality and solutions to help deliver insight to the answers. In our experience, three of these factors serve as a solid starting point to determine if the cloud is right for you.Key factors when considering Microsoft in the cloud vs. on premise :

1. Security. You may be good at keeping your data secure, but unless you are heavily invested in this area, a professional data center can probably do it better. While you focus on running your business, security is one of the main focuses of data center operations.This means having multiple levels of security, both physical and digital, which block the many routes hackers can take to reach your data. Since a data center’s business revolves around top hosting practices, they invest more in IT security staff than the average business.Whether or not you can afford the appropriate and ethical levels of security depends on the types of data you store. Some data requires specific security measures by law, such as customer banking information.

2. Internal IT Resources. Sophisticated technology requires deep technical knowledge, and is best suited for someone who specializes in your solution. By hosting in the cloud, solution experts take care of all the technical work for you. What you get, as a customer, is flexible access to your systems without the hassle of maintaining them. And it’s much cheaper than paying the salaries and benefits of skilled IT personnel.

3. Backups & Disaster Recovery. Peace of mind is often a cited benefit of the cloud for IT personnel. At a data center, reliable experts back up all of your data using the best methods on a very regular basis. This means that on the highly unlikely occasion that your server breaks, your data will still be safe and your operations won’t be affected.

For many organizations, data is their business. If they don’t have access to their historical and operational data, they simply cannot continue. For these organizations, backing up data is an absolute priority, although it should be treated as such by any business.

A commonly overlooked factor:
Staying current with technology trends that eventually become technology standards is important for modern businesses. You can plan for the future as best you can with the budget you have now, but the truth is we have no way of predicting where technology will go or what form it will take. Utilizing the cloud rather than investing in server hardware keeps your organization nimble and able to adopt new technologies with greater flexibility. This is a unique advantage to consider in the ever-expanding digital age.

Whether you need it or simply want it, the latest and greatest technology is no longer out of reach for small to midsize businesses. SMEs now have the opportunity to forge a competitive advantage and get ahead with strategic IT planning.

We host Microsoft products in our top-of-the-line SEACOM data center to help our clients simplify and save on the storage, maintenance and support of their Microsoft solutions.

Our SEACOM data center features:

  • Microsoft certified data center.
  • Customizable private cloud and hybrid deployments
  • Full data center compliancy for: PCI, ISAE 3402, SSAE 16/SOC 2, HIPAA
  • Application integration, maintenance & updates on your schedule
  • SEACOM Server Management SLA 24/7/365
  • Proactive Monitoring and support
  • 99.99% Up-time guarantee
  • Disaster Recovery and Geo-Redundancy
  • Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement SPLA