Rochester Business Journal

A rise in demand for cloud access has information technology firms tailoring their offerings to provide these services to businesses large and small.
 
Cloud computing includes a variety of models such as software as a service, or SaaS, in which an application or service that otherwise would be cost-prohibitive is offered as a subscription online.
 
Platform as a service (PaaS) allows businesses to create and deploy custom applications, databases and line-of-business services on one platform, while infrastructure as a service (IaaS) allows companies to purchase servers and memory from providers as virtual resources. These are just a few examples of the alphabet soup of cloud-related acronyms on the lips of IT professionals.
 
Like many in this field, Capstone Information Technologies Inc. has seen 30 percent to 50 percent growth over the last five years, CEO Sitima Fowler says. Since its founding in Rochester 10 years ago, Capstone has expanded to Buffalo and aims to service businesses in Syracuse in the near future.
 
The company provides IT support to small and midsize businesses, which it defines as 10 to 100 computers. A full-service provider, Capstone designs, specs, orders, delivers, sets up and supports its clients' IT solutions.
 
Fowler says business of all sizes can benefit from the advantages of cloud services.
 
"Cloud computing provides businesses the ability to rapidly scale operations without significant investments in hardware and software," she explains. "Smaller corporations are moving to the cloud for convenience. They want to focus more on their core competencies and no longer want to invest in maintaining technology."
 
Officials at managed-hosting company CentriLogic Inc. say the need for on-demand computing resources and greater scalability and accessibility has injected growth in cloud computing.
 
"For small businesses, cloud computing is attractive because it can cut overhead-hardware and software investments-create flexibility (and) efficiencies, and make enterprise-class computing resources affordable to even the smallest of companies," President and CEO Robert Offley says.
 
LMT Technology Solutions started offering cloud services some three years ago, says Nathan Benitez, director of technology services. At first, clients were a little reluctant to move to the cloud.
 
"Mainly their reluctance was because cloud was such a new concept at the time," Benitez says. "Over the last couple of years, cloud computing became more mainstream and now most companies are choosing cloud over keeping infrastructure in-house."
 
Thomas Tette, partner at Tette & Ingersoll CPAs P.C., has been an LMT client for more than a decade as part of his work with Allied Financial Partners. He says he has benefited from the decision to migrate his business online.
 
When the time came a year and a half ago for his company of 20 employees to decide whether to upgrade hardware or move to the cloud, the choice for him was clear, Tette says.
 
"At the time, servers we were looking to replace would have cost us over $100,000, and at that point, the benefits of the cloud became apparent, because you only pay for what you use, which is a big part of our business philosophy," he says.
 
Scalability is a major selling point for financial firms like Tette's, which handle tax returns. A hallmark of this business is eight months of relative quiet followed by four months of non-stop work come Jan. 1.
 
With lower maintenance overheads, Tette says, budgeting for IT services in the cloud has become more predictable. This, along with scalability, helps ease growing pains, and with his firm looking to expand to new offices, the switch to cloud computing was a key factor in facilitating future growth without an interruption in service.
 
Given Allied Financial deals with sensitive financial information, security was of paramount importance when it came to entrusting a company with handling the firm's data, an issue whenever cloud solutions are considered.
 
"Before we switched, we did a walkthrough of LMT's data center, and after seeing the security measures they had in place, and doing our own audits, we were satisfied that our data was as secure as it was when we did everything in-house," Tette says.
 
At CentriLogic, Offley says the physical security of its Rochester and Buffalo data centers are of primary importance as well. These data centers contain multiple levels of security, including mantrap entry, biometric hand scanners for access, Internet-protocol video surveillance cameras, on-site security guards, and hardened physical perimeters to ensure the safety of clients' data.
 
"Besides security, the No.1 most important issue in providing cloud services is integration and making sure everything works seamlessly," Fowler says. "It is vital to always be available and to respond quickly to any issue."
 
Jennifer Hutchison, California-based online marketing specialist for InfoStreet Inc., a cloud application provider, says other major challenges for providers are sizing, metrics and redundancy.
 
"Sizing includes the amount of hardware that you have and the ability to scale this equipment," she says. "Providers need to have an accurate idea of their growth so that they can scale hardware and networking accordingly. Lastly, providers must offer redundancy, as you never want a critical system to fail without a backup."
 
Despite all the benefits cloud services can provide, the technology is not yet mature enough to fit all businesses' needs.
 
"Cloud computing isn't necessarily cheaper than purchasing hardware," Fowler says. "A small-business owner who already invests in up-to-date technology will benefit from cloud computing because they will always have access to the latest technology in the cloud.
 
"For a business owner who doesn't have a need to upgrade often and replaces hardware every five years or so," she adds, "cloud computing is more costly."
 
Still, the future of cloud services appears to be bright, as barriers to migration lessen. The success of the cloud, Fowler says, is self-sustaining; as cloud services become prevalent, vendors will be willing to provide line-of-business software. Currently that is a major hurdle for many businesses that would like to become untethered from their own IT infrastructure.
 
Benitez predicts that within five years, most companies will have no IT infrastructure in-house except for network connections, though there will always be a need for a help desk.
 
On the application side, Hutchison says the next big breakthrough will be the consolidation of a pure cloud desktop from the many disparate programs offered today.
 
"As the numbers of apps that we use increases, we need a platform that will allow all of these apps to co-exist harmoniously," she says, "without complicating the user's experience-fully integrated apps within a cloud desktop, or more specifically, cloud-based applications that can speak to each other and share data."
 
Jason Schultz is a Rochester-area freelance writer.3/1/13 (c) 2013 Rochester Business Journal. To obtain permission to reprint this article, call 585-546-8303 or email service@rbj.net.