Cloud management

In our experience and according to recent studies, yes, but it depends on several variables. The exact saving follows from what the current infrastructure looks like, how much goes into hardware and how many people look after the systems.

No, the saving arises in a different place depending on size. Large companies gain most by moving from capital expenditure to operating expenditure, that is from hardware investment to regular payments, which improves cash flow. Medium-sized companies value quick scaling up and down. Small companies and start-ups avoid the initial investment altogether and reach technology that would otherwise be financially out of reach for them.

Neither is automatically true. The cloud is not secure in itself and your own server is not better protected simply because it stands in your building. What decides the resulting security is configuration, administration and who is responsible for what.

This is the most common misconception. The cloud runs on shared responsibility: the provider protects the data centre, the hardware and the platform itself, but the company remains responsible for user accounts, passwords, permissions, service configuration and devices. Badly set sharing, missing multi-factor authentication or a compromised administrator account lead to a data breach even in a technically very well secured cloud.

No. For many companies neither one on its own is the best answer — the most practical arrangement is usually to combine both according to what each part of the operation needs.

Above all companies that have neither their own security team nor the capacity to run physical infrastructure around the clock. It removes the worry about power, cooling, backup connectivity and replacing failed hardware.