In the world of non-profit, religious groups, who provide private school education for children, their hands are tied when it comes to their IT network systems. Most operate on donations, pledges, and gifts from philanthropy. Their budgets are tight, and IT is done in-house by a friend or relative.

When any of these groups, is seeking information and a price quote on Cloud services, the request usually comes from a financial committee, board, or trustees. Those individuals must weigh out operational costs, potential future monies from donors, and if there is an area in the non-profit organization, where funds did not get used, could it be shifted to any new purchases or commitments.

So, when taking your non-profit IT, on premises, infrastructure and moving it over to a Cloud-Based Infrastructure, there are questions you’ll want to ask first before your Mosque, Synagogue or Church leaders decide to move to the cloud.

What Is The Difference Between an In-House Server and Cloud Server?

Even to this day, there is still confusion about the difference between an In-House server infrastructure and a Cloud server infrastructure. If you are not an IT person or technology buff, there is a good chance you may not know. Below is our list of the pros and cons for both server infrastructures.

In-House Server Infrastructure – Your Location

Pros

• Keeps critical data in-house
• Gives you physical control over your backups
• Internet connection not required to access data
• A third party will not have access to your information
• Can be more cost-efficient for small to mid-sized organizations

Cons

• No uptime or recovery time guarantees
• Requires an initial investment in hardware and infrastructure
• Needs space in an office or closet for a rack; plus, a dedicated IT support
• Might be susceptible to data loss during a disaster, e., fire, earthquake or natural disaster.

Cloud Server Infrastructure – Cloud Location

Pros

• Small data set recovery time is improved
• Minimizes data losses in disaster situations
• 15-minute data backup intervals in the cloud
• Onsite hardware or capital expenses are not required
• Storage additions are always available and when needed
• On-demand solutions and you only pay for what you need
• Best for smaller companies that may outgrow storage too quickly
• Initiate a backup and restore from anywhere, using any computer, tablet, or smartphone

Cons

• Full data recovery is very time-consuming and impactful on systems
• Limit to the data stored in the cloud due to storage availability and cost
• Data recovery costs outweigh the benefits where uptime and instant recovery is not needed
• When the Internet goes down on either side, access to any of your information is unavailable

What Services Does Microsoft Azure Offer?

Microsoft, one of the most trusted names in software; Microsoft Azure offers a bundle of cloud services and tools that AWS does not. Azure is not the number one leader but is gaining ground on AWS. What Azure lacks in market position makes up for it with more tools and for two distinctly different groups; Developers and Non-Developers.

These are Microsoft Azure services in the cloud for Non-Developers:

• Storage
• Analytics
• Compute
• Databases
• Containers
• Networking
• Web + Mobile
• Developer Tools
• Security + Identity
• Management Tools
• AI + Machine Learning
• Internet of Things Integration

These are Microsoft Azure services in the cloud for Developers:

• Batch
• WebJobs
• Functions
• App Services
• Service Fabric
• Cloud Services
• Container Service

The small list above is only a handful of the tools available to developers in the Microsoft Azure cloud. The .Net developers have discovered how easy publishing an application to Azure can be; the process is intuitive, and the platform does much of the work.

What Services Does Amazon Web Services (AWS) Offer?

Amazon, a trusted e-commerce name, and destination; also offers Amazon Web Services (AWS) and remains the market leader in cloud services. At this time, it does not provide as many cloud services tools as Azure does.

These are the AWS services in the cloud:

• Mobile
• Storage
• Security
• Analytics
• Compute
• Databases
• Networking
• Developer Tools
• Internet of Things
• Management Tools
• Enterprise Application

How Much Will A Mosque Pay For Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services Cost?

Unlike most products or services, cloud-based infrastructure solutions won’t have a fixed price for either service. But the primary reason the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) doesn’t have fixed pricing is due to flexibility. What one Mosque needs another may not, so when you speak with an IT Consultant, they will have to assess your needs first before providing you with a price that fits your Mosque’s budget.

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