Cloud computing has been gaining a lot of traction in the past few years. For big businesses, moving to the cloud is a no-brainer. After all, IT expenses, which includes software purchases, hardware, personnel, floorspace and electricity to keep systems running 24/7 accounts for a huge part of their budget. For start-ups with a limited budget, a public cloud solution is a cheap way to get up and running with little investment, while still keeping the option for expansion open later on. However, what about those in between? What about the small businesses, many of which are the backbone of many communities, but are now struggling with the ever-increasing costs of doing business?
In San Diego alone, 95% of businesses are small-to-medium sized enterprises; two-thirds of these have less than 10 employees. Cloud computing for San Diego businesses seems to have a catch, though – they can’t afford large private clouds like big business, but they feel vulnerable moving their (and their client’s) data into a public cloud. Indeed, security and availability are the number one reasons many businesses, big and small alike, are afraid to make the change to cloud computing. However, there is a happy medium in this scenario, and that is the hybrid cloud.