Is the way forward with the cloud?

[r0b]

I’ve just had 2 different companies phone me to try and sell me 'cloud' storage and SaaS facilities. I told them that I wasn’t interested because of the security etc but is it just me? I want to embrace it but just can’t see it working. Can someone please tell me that I’m right or is this the way forward?
Cheers

[elsiegee40]

In the long term, yes the Cloud will undoubtedly be where people and businesses keep an awful lot of stuff.

Is it right now? In a school, probably not.

As this is your first post, can I say to edugeek and ask for a bit more background from you. I don't want to give a school answer and find you work for Amazon!

[hardtailstar]

Welcome to Edugeek

For me I wont store in the cloud as of yet for a number of reasons.

[AngryTechnician]

Depends on the size of your school, the size of your technical staff, and the size of your budget.

In my experience a lot of service companies drastically underestimate the complexity of school IT requirements, and think they can provide a much cheaper solution than the school would actually need. The rest tend to think we have similar budgets to a private sector business of the same size, so offer solutions that are unaffordable.

[elsiegee40]

Depends on the size of your school, the size of your technical staff, and the size of your budget.

In my experience a lot of service companies drastically underestimate the complexity of school IT requirements, and think they can provide a much cheaper solution than the school would actually need. The rest tend to think we have similar budgets to a private sector business of the same size, so offer solutions that are unaffordable.

I agree...and will also add that it depends on the speed of your internet connection. Our small school with a 2 Meg connection wouldn't handle it

[Gibson335]

Bit by bit I would say - and even then not all the way. How much faculty-specific software will ever exist in the cloud? Our curric mail is in the cloud, if you still think of GoogleApps that way, but we have retained our Exchange services for staff...SIMS in the cloud may be something we'd look at...as for storage, I doubt it. It's not a one size fits all solution, and won't be for many years if ever.

[gshaw]

Cloud backup could be useful but again costs are prohibitive when I say I want to store all my Veeam backups there (what's the point otherwise???)

[SYNACK]

Cloud is not 'the way forward' its just another type of solution usually poorly suited to schools with small budgets and shocking, slow, unreliable, non-redundant internet connections. Even with 'good internet' would you prefer you file server to have a 1-20GB dedicated connection or to share a comparatively tiny 2-100mbit connection. No brainer really unless you only deal with basic unformatted text with no images.

[ozydave]

SYNACK

Ditto Ditto Ditto