In our last blog we talked about why the cloud makes sense for small to mid-sized businesses. One of the biggest concerns we are constantly hearing from clients revolves around security. It is a big leap to put all of your company’s critical data into the cloud. Many people feel that their data is more vulnerable to hackers in the cloud. Some people just like the peace of mind of being able to walk down the hall, open their server closet and “see” there data housed on their own servers. The reality is that your data is much more secure in a cloud hosted solution.
Keeping Your Data Safe from Cyber Attacks
Cyber attacks happen with regularity. While hacks on major companies make the news, hackers tend to target what they consider low hanging fruit. Ransomware, malware and viruses are serious issues that SMBs need to worry about on a daily basis. With cloud hosted ERP, your data is safe. Based on the virtue of what they do, cloud hosting providers employ best of breed firewall and antivirus protection. And when new advances in technology are developed data centers are responsible for upgrading their security. These are investments many SMBs simply can’t afford to make on their own, much less monitor and maintain. This means that your data is safer from cyber threats than if you were hosting it on-premise.
Protect Your Data from Disasters as Well
It isn’t just hackers that pose a threat to your data. Natural disasters and manmade disasters are just as threatening. Hurricane Sandy caused billions of dollars in damage and lost business. A lot of that was data loss due to servers being destroyed. Mother Nature isn’t the only threat. Fires, power outages or even a faulty sprinkler system can cause irreparable damage to on-premise servers causing the potential for total data loss. Cloud hosted ERP protects you from that. Even if the data center that houses your ERP system is damaged in a natural disaster, reputable cloud hosting providers have redundant data centers in different locations, meaning your entire system can be turned back on in a matter of hours, and the only data lost is the data stored since your last backup. And with a disaster recovery plan in place, that data backup could occur as often as hourly.
Even though the cloud has become ubiquitous in our society, it is still somewhat intangible. That can lead to the misconception that it isn’t secure. Between the disaster recovery options and firewall protection, cloud hosted ERP is the safe option for most SMBs. For more information on cloud security you can call The Attivo Group at 877-428-8486 or contact us here .
