To the Cloud! QuickBooks and the reality of hosting

To the Cloud! QuickBooks and the reality of hosting

We have all heard of having our pictures, backups and even applications in the “Cloud”.  For those of us in the industry it just means remotely hosted- but for those of you who don’t eat sleep and breathe internet and technology, the Cloud may seem vague and ambiguous. I recently spoke with a friend who believed that the cloud was just that. A cloud of all our data somewhere out in space. She had a difficult time explaining to me how we access the data in the magic data nebula. Here are a few questions that I hear on a regular basis:

Where exactly is this Cloud?

The “cloud” is in fact not a reference to space, satellites, or actual clouds. The cloud reference comes from a diagram of infrastructure, a way to help explain the complexity of our myriad devices, applications, and platforms.

In actuality, the cloud is a physical server somewhere is the world. When you subscribe to a hosting company, they are basically renting you a portion of their space. Like an apartment complex, your amount of space is your own environment that generally speaking you can do with what you like. All the maintenance is done by the landlord, or hosting company.

Why would you want to use a hosting service? Once again, let’s think of this like an apartment complex. If you own a house, you are familiar with all the maintenance that is involved. There are slow times, where less maintenance is required and you may enjoy doing the maintenance yourself. There are however, busier times when you may not have the time and your weeds get out of control. Now in the real world, you can let the weeds grow a little, or hire a company to come and take care of all the work for you. A hosting service takes care of your virtual weeds. There is no need for you to maintain your hardware, if something happens to a hard drive; it is replaced, usually without you even being aware of it. Over time, this can save substantial time and money for a small business.

I am the only person in QuickBooks, and I keep it on my computer only- why would I want to move to the Cloud?

Security. Period. You are only as good as your last backup- and how many small businesses keep backups? If you do backup, do you keep your backups on a disk or USB drive that is kept in the same location as your QuickBooks? If something happened to your QuickBooks data, how expensive or even possible would it be to recreate?

How can there be privacy in this Cloud?

Just like an apartment complex, you have your own key. Only you and the users that you give access to have this key. You can change who has what access at any time with your administrator for the account.

What about hackers, and all that danger?

There are always risks on the internet, but it is more likely that someone will be able to hack into your information while it is kept at your location than if it is hosted in the Cloud. Being that the hosting companies make the safety and functionality of your information their top priority, they are the experts.

I am the only person in QuickBooks, and I keep it on my computer only- why would I want to move to the Cloud?

Security. Period. You are only as good as your last backup- and how many small businesses keep backups? If you do backup, do you keep your backups on a disk or USB drive that is kept in the same location as your QuickBooks? If something happened to your QuickBooks data, how expensive or even possible would it be to recreate?

When I Google QuickBooks hosting, there are too many companies to count! How do I know who to trust?

There are people that Intuit has qualified as Intuit-Authorized Commercial Hosting companies, and they can be found here.

Each company is required to meet specific requirements for security. You can find the specifics of these requirements here.

Different companies may have additional things that they offer, and of course prices will vary from company to company.

ebs Associates can help you find a hosting solution, feel free to visit our website or give us a call at (503)885-0776. 

Written by Liza Shaw, Marketing Administrator at ebs Associates