1Is it possible to save costs while moving to the cloud?

Not always. In order to arrive at an answer to this question, calculate the life-cycle cost (or LCC) for each option. Usually, operating your own IT infrastructure includes the following expenses:

  • Infrastructure design and planning;
  • equipment and software;
  • implementation;
  • spare parts, maintenance and vendor support contracts;
  • operating costs (data center, power supply, cooling);
  • equipment and software upgrades;
  • service personnel.

Bear in mind that the largest portion of these expenses is required at the very beginning when the details of the business project are yet unknown. Also, it’s a challenge to predict the costs of repairs and maintenance. When you rent cloud infrastructure, the major part of the expenses moves to operating expenses (OPEX). The costs of theproject start-up decrease substantially, and the risk of non-return on investment gets significantly lower. Your project becomes more predictable from a financial point of view.

2Where is your data stored?

Geographically, we are located in Riga and we fall under the jurisdiction of both Latvian and European legislation. It means that in order to conduct an informational system audit, a special court order is required.

You can learn more about our data storage systems from the Infrastructure section. 

3What are our key differentiators?

  • Time saving. Any cloud-based project tends to get up and running much faster when compared to traditional infrastructures. The same advantage applies to project scale-up and scale-down.
  • Cost transparency. No large or unforeseen investments required, no hidden costs are included.
  • 24/7 remote access for your employees. Sickness or pregnancy won’t be an obstacle for accessing your business systems anymore.
  • Regular backup for all customer data. There is no need to worry about data loss.
  • Every customer has a dedicated technical support engineer from Clouds.lv. 

4Is it possible to get virtual data center for a free trial period?

Yes, it is possible. The trial period and computing capacity is agreed upon individually for each project or customer. Our goal is to earn a new customer when the trial period is over. That is why we always ask you to tell us more about your needs and expectations so that we can help determine the requirements and terms of your testing. Our engineers will help you to adjust the virtual data center and will provide you with information about details to pay attention to during the trial period. 

5What workloads can I put into the cloud?

  • Remote workplace infrastructure (IaaS): corporate email servers, accountancy, CRM systems, file servers, terminal servers (RDS), and other business applications. A standard virtual data center will be sufficient for small and medium-sized business in most cases (up to 250 employees). Bigger projects will require individual design and evaluation.
  • Online projects: websites, portals and online stores.
  • Remote backup repositories (BaaS).
  • Testing and development environments 

6What sort of workloads should not be put in into the cloud?

Servers of high performance graphical processing (CAD, 3D, graphic editors) will not operate at optimal levels in the cloud. It is also prohibited to publish any systems related to online fraud and spamming as well as the distribution of illegal or extremist content on the Internet.

7How should I start moving the office infrastructure into the cloud?

You should start by inventory tracking: count your workstations, servers and software licenses. Then you need to design your virtual data center, create virtual machines, configure software and networking. If your infrastructure is big, it is usually moved into the cloud in several steps. Smaller offices may be able to move in just a weekend.

We can perform your infrastructure migration for you. The cost of this service is defined individually for each project and depends on the volume of work. We do this for free for most small projects.

If you are not sure about the software licensing, please contact us for a consultation. 

8Can I place my own hardware or rent physical servers from Clouds.lv?

Yes, we offer collocation services for our customer’s equipment at our racks in the datacentre. We also rent dedicated servers upon special request.

All collocated equipment has a redundant power supply and network links. The rental cost for collocation depends on the equipment size and on power consumption factors.

The rental cost for dedicated servers depends on their type and performance. We make offers for each customer individually taking in account requested services, volume, and the duration of the contract. 

9How do I contact you with additional questions?

Feel free to contact us with any questions at info@clouds.lv. You may also fill out the feedback form. We will respond within 24 hours by email, telephone or Skype. 

>