As individuals, we are very used to "hosted" applications in our daily lives. Gmail, Facebook, and your online banking bill pay website are just three examples of applications that we use frequently. We need only a web browser to get at and make changes to our data. The provider of the service, e.g. Google in the case of Gmail, takes care of storing and securing our data and making sure that we can access service over the web.
You need to think carefully when deciding to use a third party company to provide one or more of the IT services that you need to run your business. Remember, once you start using an outsourced company, your proprietary and sensitive company data is being stored out on the web somewhere and it is no longer under your direct control. Who has access to look at your data? Is it really getting backed up? When and if the data does get backed up, who at the backup site has access to it? If you decide to change providers, how will you get your data back?
So what should you be thinking about before deciding to outsource one or more of your key IT services?
- If you are storing files/data on the web, make sure that this data is going to be stored encrypted.
- Make sure that the backups of your data are going to a facility separate from the primary one.
- Reduce the risk of a single point of failure by splitting your IT service needs over multiple providers.
- Think about providing your own web-based services that you control! Today, you can lease virtual or dedicated servers inexpensively. Most of these servers come with packages of free software including email, help desk, web analytics, etc.
As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
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