TOAST.net has been singing the praises of cloud services for years, and with good reason. Cloud based email, document systems, security, and web tools are easier to use, easier to maintain, incredibly less expensive, and now it turns out they help to save the planet.
AT&T just finished a large-scale study (PDF) on the advantages of putting your data in the cloud, and the results are shocking. The report shows switching cloud platforms would save companies billions of dollars per year, and up to 200 million barrels of oil by 2020.
It actually makes sense. Cloud services alleviate the need for power-hungry mail and file servers to run in-house 24/7. This also leads to a cost savings in support systems, extra staff, lighting, backup battery systems, and anything else required to keep a server running. The report states that companies that switch to cloud based systems use only 69% of their total IT budget. While most of the savings comes from less power consumption, IT administrators cite the fact that wasteful redundancy is eliminated — you only pay for what you need. Since new servers and services can be set up in minutes instead of days, resources are activated on demand. Also noted is these services are accessible from any Internet connection, so less time is spent travelling.
If you would like your air to be a little cleaner, gas to be a little less expensive, and the inside of your wallet to be a little greener, it looks like going green with TOAST.net Cloud Services is the way to go!