The server humming in your office closet has served you well. But it's aging, the warranty is expiring, and you're wondering whether to replace it or finally move to the cloud. Here's how we help clients think it through.
When Cloud Makes Sense
- Your hardware is due for replacement. Avoid a five-figure capital purchase and shift to predictable monthly costs.
- Your team works from multiple locations. Cloud-hosted files and apps are accessible anywhere, securely.
- Uptime matters more than ever. Enterprise data centres deliver redundancy that no office closet can match.
- You're already in Microsoft 365. SharePoint, OneDrive and Azure can often replace a traditional file server entirely.
When It Doesn't (Yet)
- Heavy local workloads. Large CAD files or imaging systems may perform better on-premise.
- Limited internet options. Cloud-first requires reliable connectivity, ideally with failover.
- Specialty legacy software. Some line-of-business apps simply aren't cloud-ready — though hosted private servers can bridge the gap.
The Right Answer Is Usually Hybrid
Most of our migrations land somewhere in between: email and files in the cloud, with any stubborn legacy applications hosted on a right-sized private server. The result is lower cost, better resilience and a clear path forward.
A proper assessment — what runs where, what it costs today, what it would cost in the cloud — turns this from a guess into a plan.