There is an old adage that says your business is either growing or dying. The challenge in today’s economy is how to create the ideal conditions for your business to grow without having to spend a huge amount of money. Ideally, you want to increase growth, productivity and flexibility whilst at the same time saving money on key infrastructure and systems.

Last Thursday, I attended a presentation by Amazon regarding their Web Services division. Now, my company, Austlink has been using one of their services “S3 – Simple Storage Service” since the 23rd of May 2007. Since then we have ramped up our use, adding many more of their services for our critical business systems. We also provide their services to our clients. So for me they were preaching to the converted.

I have been in the business of helping clients with their IT Infrastructure, hardware and software for the last 22 years and I have seen many changes along the way. The amazing part is that I have seen technology going through similar cycles over time.

If you remember before the advent of the personal computer, companies would have installed a mini or mainframe computer inside their offices housed in a purpose built, raised floor, separately air conditioned, computer room. All the computing power was in that room. The users had access to it via dumb terminals (green or amber screens) at their desk, if they were lucky. These systems were expensive to install and maintain, but they had the unique advantage of being centrally managed. One upgrade to the software or the hardware and all the users in that organisation would have instant access to the latest and greatest version. Backing up this one system also backup every single person’s work. Read More→