Cloud control

Cloud computing continues to expand as more companies recognize the benefits of storing and managing information, records and additional business-related documents using cloud-based services.

Sixty percent of companies surveyed in the “2013 Cloud Computing Study” say they view cloud computing as a natural evolution of IT service delivery. TheInfoPro, a service of New York-based 451 Research, which focuses on enterprise IT innovation, published the study.

The study, which projects “explosive growth in the next two years for cloud computing,” also found that 69 percent of businesses that have separate budgets for cloud computing predict spending increases into 2014.

While internal private cloud initiatives still dominate most companies’ investments in cloud-based services by 35 percent, the report says software as a service (SaaS) has doubled to 33 percent.

For commercial records centers, cloud-based services allow companies to perform tasks that were not possible before the advent of cloud computing, says David Holt, CEO of O’Neil Software, Irvine, Calif.

“With clients in 85 countries, true cloud-based services allows O’Neil the opportunity to provide functionality and services that would not be available to our clients under a typical on-premises software structure,” Holt says.

O’Neil DataTech LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of O’Neil Software and provider of cloud-based commercial records management services, announced oneilCloud, a re-engineering and rewriting of the company’s RS-SQL® client/server paradigm, in 2013. OneilCloud takes advantage of SaaS and is another cloud-based solution offered by O’Neil after the company introduced oneilBridge, its first foray into cloud computing, two years ago.

Companies that use cloud-based services have more computing power, storage capacity and easier communication with customers, Holt says.

“The cloud changes everything, and it is becoming a lot more prevalent. It opens so many additional doors that weren’t available for records storage centers,” he says. “It opens the ability for more instantaneous information because it is cloud-based. The ease with which you can connect customers opens exponentially; instead of this really closed environment, you have a more open environment.”
 

Internet introduction

Scott Bidwell, president of Andrews Software Inc. (ASI), Cleveland, says cloud-based services are a good entry point for commercial records centers that are considering expanding on the numerous features they offer customers.

That is why the provider of software solutions to commercial records management companies introduced the industry’s first Internet-based software of its kind nearly 17 years ago, Bidwell says. InfoKeeper provides records center clients with Web-based management solutions and access to their service providers’ databases from anywhere in the world.

“We started providing cloud services before the term ‘cloud services’ was coined,” Bidwell says.

He adds that InfoKeeper continues to grow and is still widely used in the industry; clients in 25 countries use the software today. ASI serves hundreds of customers through its cloud application, processing 1 million transactions each month, Bidwell says.

Prior to InfoKeeper’s debut, Bidwell says 70 percent of its commercial records center clients used ASI’s PC-based application. The other 30 percent of the company’s clientele used dumb terminals, which could not run the PC-based application, Bidwell explains.

ASI decided to make its application Internet based to better serve its clients, but the company quickly learned that the Internet was still unfamiliar ground for many.

The company spent a lot of time educating customers, he says. ASI put together an Internet dictionary on a glossy piece of paper that included definitions for terms such as email address, IP address, domain name and SSL.

“The problem in 1997 was that 95 percent of the records center customers didn’t even know what the Internet was, let alone how they were going to be able to support a Web-based technology,” Bidwell says.

“So then ASI said, ‘We will host the application, and the record center doesn’t have to have anything but the Internet.’”

It is that lack of required hardware and infrastructure that makes cloud computing so appealing to commercial records centers, Bidwell says. To use cloud-computing software, clients need only a device with an Internet browser.

Bidwell says, “The primary benefit of the cloud is that we host everything, so customers don’t have to get any hardware they don’t have today. It allows the record center to provide a level of technology without the investment in infrastructure.”
 

Data control

Clifford Besner, chairman of DocuData, a record center software provider based in Montreal, says there are two kinds of customers in the commercial records center industry when it comes to cloud services.

The first group, he explains, does not care to invest in infrastructure or to deal with IT-related issues and would rather the software provider host all of its information on the provider’s server. Most of DocuData’s customers, at least 80 percent, fit into this category, Besner says.

DocuData introduced its EDC Record Center Software 12 years ago, he says.

For customers who have limited IT experience, O’Neil’s Holt says the software provider is able to assit in that area. For instance, some companies forget to run software updates; but, with oneilCloud, the software provider can automatically initiate updates, he explains.

“The beauty of the cloud is it allows us to be able to do different things that normally wouldn’t be available for clients,” Holt says. “Maybe the client doesn’t know how to do backups very well. We can do that for them. When you think about what a record center does, they’re not IT experts; they take care of operations and manage clients, and the cloud gives them time to focus on what they do best and let us do what we do best.”

Other customers prefer having all of their data “under their roof so that they have total control,” Bidwell says.

Many clients who want to host cloud services on their networks using their Intranets are large institutions, such as accounting and law firms and school boards, Besner explains. These larger customers are typically leery about sending information over the cloud because they have sensitive documents and don’t want to risk a breach in security, he says.
 

Offer options

Whichever direction the customer chooses, Bidwell says it is important for companies to stay current with today’s technology to maintain and gain clients. Some customers want control over their data and some don’t, he says.

“If everything was cloud-based, you would potentially lose a deal because the customer wants control. If everything was client-based, you would lose those customers who want cloud-based services because they don’t want to go through the compliance on an annual basis, network security audits, etc.,” Bidwell adds.

Holt agrees that staying well-versed with technology is a good business move.

“It has more to do with how you want to differentiate yourself in terms of the services you provide to the end user,” Holt says.

Besner says commercial records centers should not limit the services they offer if they want to stay in business. “If you offer the additional services, your customers will come on board faster,” he says. “I’m finding more and more records centers are offering more and more services.”
 

Safe and secure

The more services commercial records centers offer, the additional security they will need. There is a long list of security concerns to acknowledge when incorporating cloud-based services, Besner says. First, all documents must be encrypted, he says.

ASI’s InfoKeeper provides 256-bit encryption, Bidwell says. ASI also requires users to pass through two login screens to gain access to data.

DocuData’s Besner says some clients change login passwords every 30 days to ensure access protection.

DocuData, which performs backups in the cloud, monitors the company’s network 24/7, he says.

O’Neil maintains backups in a separate geographic location from the operational application to ensure redundancy and recovery, Holt explains. Systems are constantly monitored for maximum availability, he adds.

Holt addresses another likely concern while working in the cloud: What happens if the Internet goes down?

That is why Bidwell stresses the importance of hosts maintaining several different Internet providers at their facilities. If one provider has an outage, the company is still able to connect to the cloud because it is not reliant on a single provider, he says.

No matter what security measures commercial records centers take, it comes with a cost, Bidwell says. “You have to weigh the differences between paying that hosted cloud-based service fee and what it is going to cost to buy a server or servers, along with providing the infrastructure to ensure 99.99 percent uptime, including data replication or backups. Most smaller operations can’t afford it,” Bidwell says. “The software today is far more complex than it was years ago. It wouldn’t be financially viable for most record centers to set out and create their own software.”

Bidwell says he predicts that cloud computing will continue to expand as more companies adopt cloud-based services.

The author is an associate editor of Storage & Destruction Business and can be reached at mworkman@gie.net.