Message from Uzair Sattar, Founder

 

“As the winter and the holiday season approach, we thought it was apropos to focus this newsletter on our cloud services.  We’ve been building cloud infrastructures for more than a decade, and know the best strategies to make your business more responsive, scalable, and competitive.”
— Uzair

 

There’s Value in That Cloud

Cloud hosting offers many advantages. Namely, your company can access data from any Internet-enabled device. Other benefits include:

  • Greater flexibility, collaboration, and scalability — For growing companies, this is often the best, most flexible solution. If your needs change or bandwidth demands skyrocket, you can easily scale. In addition, project teams can collaborate in real-time using the same files and computer applications — making your teams far more efficient
  • Reduced costs — Cloud storage tends to be cheaper than buying several high-end hard drives.  With cloud computing, you pay as you go in most cases.
  • Better security and disaster recovery — If your computer or hard drive gets destroyed or stolen, you will still have access to the data you saved on the cloud. Given today’s cybersecurity threats, this is an essential advantage.
  • Increased competitiveness — By moving to the cloud, your company — regardless of its size — has access to enterprise-class technology and can act quickly and decisively to meet any opportunity.

 

 

The Role of MSPs and MHPs

 

Did you know that 57% of IT leaders expect to partner with Managed Service Providers (MSP) and Managed Hosting Providers (MHP) for hybrid cloud/multi-cloud implementation and management support? According to the Microsoft Hosting and Cloud Study 2017, 55% are planning to work with public cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers and 53% are planning to work with security service providers. The findings reflect how successful MSPs are at broadening the breadth of services and supported platforms they are providing today and plan to in the future.

 

Get the report here »

 


3 Considerations When Hosting Your Own Services


If you plan to host cloud services on your own, we recommend keeping these three points in mind. While we typically don’t recommend that companies host their own cloud services, ICE Consulting is here to help if you decide to take this path:


Choose the right cloud hosting provider. With so many different companies on the market to choose from, there are a lot of options with an even wider variety of financial choices. Ask your cloud-hosting provider if it routinely backs up its servers – and how many/how often they back up your data. You should also find out if your data will be encrypted when you upload or download it from the cloud. The most secure hosting providers require that the browser or app you use to access the cloud has an encrypted connection before you can download or upload ANY content.


Don’t underestimate the amount of bandwidth you may need.  If you don’t purchase enough bandwidth, then your applications will run slower. Fortunately, cloud storage is cheap, and you can scale your bandwidth up or down depending on your specific needs. If you really want to cut costs, then you can compress files and use data deduplication, which eliminates redundant data.


Make a full and ‘smart’ transition to cloud hosting. Many business owners are reluctant to abandon their tried and tested business processes. It’s not easy to trust a third-party hosting provider with your sensitive data, but if you do your research and ask the right questions – as outlined in “Consideration #1” – then your digital resources will be secure.


Whether you manage dozens of employees, run a conventional store, or work as a freelance designer, you could improve efficiency and reduce your expenses by migrating to cloud hosting. Obviously hiring an MSP would be ideal, especially one like ICE Consulting who is watching your network 24 by 7. Either way, we recommend that you keep the three points above in mind and you’ll be able to enjoy the many benefits of cloud computing.

 

ICE Cloud Services


When you are ready, ICE Consulting can help. We have a team of highly experienced engineers who will handle your IT migration to the cloud — with the right planning and careful execution.  ICE Consulting offers complete solutions for cloud services, including options from a private and/or public cloud model.

 

Learn more about our cloud services here »

 

 

ICE Motto of the Month

At ICE, we believe at the end of the day we are accountable to ourselves. And our success is a result of what we do.

 

Have questions about our services?

Contact Kate Garrison at 408.701.5717 or email info@iceconsulting.com

 

Headquarters | Silicon Valley 1900 McCarthy Blvd. Suite 300

Milpitas CA 95035 | 888 423-4801

 

© 2017 ICE Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved.