Last month Joe Lyden, Evolving Solutions Cloud Sales Specialist, and James Keating III, Evolving Solutions Business Technology Architect, discussed current cloud trends during a lunch webinar. Over the next two blog posts, we will look at several parts of that discussion. Today, let’s focus on cloud solutions for data protection and important factors for cloud success.

How important is your data?

• 81% of companies that have experience an outage in the past 2 years were down for more than 2 days
• 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster
• 51% of small and medium businesses (SMBs) have an IT business continuity plan in place. Flip that number and it could mean that 49% are not fully prepared
• $10,000 is the estimated average cost of a single data loss incident

In today’s marketplace where you are expected to be “on” 24/7, data protection and business continuity are key to staying competitive.  Through the cloud, SMBs can now more than ever access cutting-edge, reliable data protection, disaster recovery and business continuity solutions at an affordable price point. Disaster recovery as a service is becoming an important and affordable entry point for many businesses when it comes to cloud adoption.

Small and medium-sized businesses especially are stretched when it comes to time and resources, but in today’s marketplace you are still expected to provide reliable, always on service. Cloud solutions allow SMBs to do just that – providing any-sized businesses with enterprise-class technology.

Take a step back.  The cloud is “not magic pixie dust” as Joe Lyden points out in the webinar.  Just like with other technology projects, you must have a clear cloud strategy, specific objectives and a clear understanding of what will integrate well. Testing is also extremely important.  The right cloud partner can help SMBs navigate cloud solutions available and weigh in on what would work best for your situation.

Look for our next blog post on Wednesday, April 27th where we will cover current cloud trends. You can also listen to Joe and James’ full Cloud Trends webinar here.