Just a few years ago, cloud storage meant 1 of 2 things: it was either where Mary Poppins sat with her umbrella and carpetbag, waiting for a family who needed her, or where angels kept their harps, halos, and other angel stuff.

Over the last 2 years, the term cloud storage was used more and more in the business world, as companies began storing information and files electronically using an Internet provider instead of a hard or flash drive.

As cloud computing and storage have become popular, a lot of companies have made the jump, while many more are flirting with the idea of going from hard drive to cloud storage after seeing Google and Microsoft try it out themselves.

Some of the more popular cloud storage solutions out there, which you have probably heard of, include Amazon S3, Dropbox, Egnyte and Google; several more are listed here.

If you have decided that cloud computing is the way to go for your company, be sure to approach the move like you would any other kind of internal infrastructure change.  Make the transition go as smoothly as possible by taking the following steps:

• Assess your options. Decide where your company’s priorities lie. How does hard storage affect your life, or how would you like to start utilizing cloud storage? Do you have more than one location that uses the same information to be accessed at the same time?

• Plan your attack. Consider using consultants to make the transition easier—many Software as a Service (SaaS) companies exist to help companies small and large through this kind of transition and can offer valuable insight and advice into making it a seamless switch.

• Test it out.  Like switching any provider or vendor, it’s important to try out a few alternatives before you settle in for the long haul. Pick out a few small projects and assignments that would benefit from cloud storage. Make a note of things that work and don’t work, things you like and don’t like. Then stick with the winner.

• Keep learning. Once you have test driven a few services and decided on a winner, be sure to keep track of your process.  How has moving to the cloud positively and/or negatively affected your teams and business processes?  Evaluate what is working and what isn’t and make adjustments. Use that information to reap as many benefits from your set up as possible to ensure that the move was worth the investment for the long haul.

It feels like we have tried all the cloud storage options at Accelerance. Google Docs is good if you need to share and control access to individual word processing and spreadsheet documents. We also use Dropbox for sharing files with external partners and clients too. Dropbox has served us well except we don’t have control over who can add or delete files in folders we share. That’s not a big problem for internal use (unless we start deleting each other’s files!) but it’s a bigger weakness when sharing externally.

Recently we started using Egnyte which does offer more control and we are willing to pay the relatively low account fee to get this feature. You’ll have to decide what are the features, functions and costs you need.

In addition to end-user cloud storage solutions, you can also write application that store information in the cloud. Amazon Simples Storage Service (S3) and Microsoft Azure are two major examples. This is a more sophisticated use of cloud computing. For example, we have clients using our partners to develop web applications where large numbers of video and audio files are uploaded for music sharing, online job interview videos and photo sharing and printing. Go to our cloud computing page to see the partners expert at developing these techniques.

Good Luck!

To learn more about this topic, or discover how an Accelerance Partner can assist you with your IT or software development requirements, please contact us today at 877-992-2235 x 100 or by email at info @ accelerance.com.