Cloud Computing is a hot trend these days and most technology firms, expert analysts and even the highly successful enterprises of today will probably agree that the future is in the clouds. Taking it to the cloud has a lot of advantages in simplifying things and minimizing cost by transferring the resources of each client into an infrastructure capable of storing insurmountable amounts of data and files. Having files stored in the Cloud brings additional benefits in that information flow can be greatly improved within an organization by allowing employees, customers, suppliers and partners to more easily share information. With Cloud computing files can be easily uploaded from anywhere in the world and then accessed from anywhere in the world quickly and easily.

Cloud File Storage Solutions for SMBs

Cloud file storage has been around for a while, but most solutions where oriented toward personal use. These solutions provide a great convenience to users since they do not have to care about the complexities of hardware management and backups, or internal and external threats from hardware malfunction and power outages. Cloud file storage has been popular with small and medium-size businesses and primarily used for archiving email, front office applications and secondary storage and backup. Some key players in this area include Box.net, Live Mesh, Drop Box, JungleDisk and of course Google Docs. Where most of these products do a good job at economically storing, retrieving and sharing files they typically do not support the heavy lifting required by enterprises such as dealing with extra large files and integrating with enterprise cloud apps.

Some larger organizations are using cloud file storage as part of their IT infrastructure, but currently most are researching the option. There are still concerns regarding security, data integrity and availability, along with the lack of tools and standards for auditing and data verification. Even with the concerns, the benefits of file cloud storage is compelling enough for most enterprises and cloud app providers push forward with developing and using file cloud storage.

Cloud File Storage Solutions for Enterprises