
Cloud Computing
According to a survey by Microsoft, 39% of small businesses worldwide plan to be paying to use one or more cloud services by 2015.
In fact, most people use some type of cloud computing in the form of:
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Hosted email
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Offsite storage and backup
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Hosted backup services
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Microsoft's Office 365/OneDrive
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Desktop as a service
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Collaboration software such as SharePoint
On the corporate side, with companies such as Amazon, Rackspace and CloudConnect you can basically rent servers in the cloud. For example you can run application, database and web servers without having to purchase the hardware and house them in your office. These may be configured to be always on and available or you may just need to spin one up for testing or development.
This is just the tip of the iceberg though. There are many ways to utilize the cloud - public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud. While there can be many advantages, you need to think about security and vetting the company you partner with to make sure they are going to be around for the long haul and not leave you and your data in a bad spot.
SherpaData will help you determine which cloud solutions are right for you and help you roll out a successful implementation.

