Cloud Based Customer Relationship and Patient Records

The latest buzz is about cloud computing...have you heard of it? Do you know what it’s all about? Here’s a clue: it has nothing to do with the weather!

Increasingly the concept of storing and managing data, from photos and videos through to spreadsheets and databases is being enabled through hosted servers which are then accessible through an Internet browser or a dedicated application on smartphones and tablets. This means that the data is securely stored on a bank of third party servers or ‘cloud’ which can be accessed from multiple devices simultaneously, freeing up your own or your company’s requirements for hard drive space and allowing on-the-go access to your data.

In the case of larger database requirements it means that instead of investing in a bank of in-house servers which will both depreciate in value and become ‘old tech’ over time, an organisation can now pay-as-you-go for a shared, always up-to-date, guaranteed capacity, hosted server service, thus incurring an operating cost to their business without worrying about capital expenditure and future upgrade requirements.

Cloud computing also removes the need to be responsible for backing up systems and on or off-premises safe keeping of back-ups against fire risks etc. as everything is saved securely in the cloud, often with hardware redundancy planning and disaster recovery systems built into the service provision. (Although, in my opinion you would be well advised to keep regular back-ups of your cloud based data. It’s always better to be safe than sorry!)

One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is of course the ability to access your data over the Internet which means that it can be accessed anytime, anyplace where a WiFi or 3G/4G connection is available for data download to a laptop, Mac, mobile phone or tablet based device. This makes it an ideal solution for those professionals who are always on the go from place to place but need access to their personal and business data. It is also more secure than carting around a USB flash stick full of business data which could be all too easily lost.

Examples of commonly used (and mostly free) cloud based storage and document management systems, also referred to as file hosting services include Google Drive (which integrates the old Google Docs), SkyDrive from Microsoft, iCloud from Apple and Dropbox. These allow the easy storage and access to spreadsheets, word processing files, PDFs, images, audio and video files, and any number of other formats.

Moving on from a simple hard drive in the sky, we then find hosted services or Application Servicing Provisioning (ASP) which run certain software in a remote location which you can access through a web browser or mobile app. Examples would include everything from online banking apps, social media apps, games, music providers like Spotify and communication systems like Skype. Acronyms you may hear about ASP services include SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), HaaS (Hardware as a Service) and finally EaaS (Everything as a Service).

Essentially these all tap into our more advanced adoption of mobile technology as seen in the last 3 or 4 years with the development of so called smartphones which now cross a mobile phone with a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and a digital camera – truly the filo-fax the yuppies wished they’d had in the 1980s!

Smartphones, and latterly tablets have become widespread amongst us as the new mini-computer and work using various operating systems. The key players (and most supported for apps) being iOS (from Apple) and Android (from Google), with Windows and the Blackberry OS also available.

So, most of us now use a smartphone or tablet to read and send emails, check our social media profiles, read web based content and a multitude of other things which we used to do on a desktop pc or laptop; so why not manage our businesses and clients with them too?

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