The biggest impact that open source software offers small business in 2014 takes place in the cloud. Open source software powers the cloudwhere you can take advantage of both hosted software and services, and hosted IT infrastructure (e.g., servers). We're already used to hosted services such as Web and mail hosting. They're convenient and cheap, and they prevent headaches. <\/p>\n
What about running your small business without buying or maintaining a roomful of your own servers? Do you dream of not having to recruit and retain good tech talent? Can you run your shop with no on-premises servers at allsimply plug into some kind of hosted turnkey IT-in-a-box, and just buy smartphones, tablets, and PCs? The answer to all of these questions is yesand no. <\/p>\n
We're in the midst of a genuine tech revolution thanks to cloud technologies, which are possible because of open source software such as OpenStack and OpenShift, and Linux vendors like Red Hat and SUSE. The cloud makes it possible for hosting providers to offer more services than ever. Cloud services fall into three basic levels: <\/p>\n
First, consider whether you even want to outsource your IT. It's an attractive option if you can find service providers that offer what you need, and if you have sufficient network bandwidth that lets you work without going crazy waiting for pages to load. The hosting provider handles the burden of provisioning, maintenance, security, and bandwidth, which reduces your staffing needs. It will likely cost less than doing it yourself. <\/p>\n
As the state of technology stands right now, you can outsource at least part of your IT to hosting providers and, as the cloud evolves, you'll have a wider range of services and products to choose from in the future. Let's look at a few different scenarios. <\/p>\n
If you use Google Apps for Business, you're already outsourcing some of your IT without thinking of it in those terms. Google offers an assortment of basic applications for reasonable prices: Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Hangouts (videoconferencing), Google Calendar, and Google+ (communities). <\/p>\n
You get to use your own branding and domain name, and you don't need a tech guru to set it up and maintain it. The main pitfall is that Google makes it too easy to share everything with the world, so you have to be very careful with your access permissions. For some small shops, Google Apps for Business is all they need, and at $5\/month per user it's a real deal. <\/p>\n
Other examples of basic hosted services for small businesses include Dropbox, Swift, GoogleDocs, and Amazon S3. However they may not be suitable, because they don't meet compliance laws that require certain documents remain under your control. If your business has compliance or security concerns, you don't store sensitive documents on cloud services. <\/p>\n
So what do you? Set up a private, on-premises cloud withOwnCloud. It isn't magic, but a moderately knowledgeable computer user can manage OwnCloud, and it provides secure file storage, sharing, sync, and management. It also syncs with Dropbox, Swift, GoogleDocs, and Amazon S3, so you can place your external storage under a good central management console. For more information, read our OwnCloud review. <\/p>\n
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