Migration to Cloud Offers Convenience for Paws With A Cause
Cloud services continue to grow in popularity, and while there was an increase in cloud use before the COVID-19 pandemic, the mandated lockdowns certainly forced organizations to rethink how they should store and access their data.
According to one study, the percentage of corporate data stored in the cloud doubled from 30% in 2015 to 60% in 2022.
Paws With A Cause, a Wayland-based nonprofit that aims to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities through trained assistance dogs, migrated its operations to the cloud at the end of 2023.
“Our server was at the point of expiration, and we were going to have to replace it. So instead of replacing it, we just moved everything up to the cloud,” PAWS Chief Financial Officer Teri Crosby said.
Crosby said migrating to the cloud was something she discussed with Hungerford Technologies (PAWS’ managed service provider for the last 10 years) casually for the past couple of years. But it was in January 2023 when those talks turned serious. The migration began that summer.
“Just after years and years of conversation … it was a natural progression,” Crosby said.
Unlike servers, which have an average lifespan of three to five years, are prone to more failures the older they get, and require the owner to pay for maintenance and upgrades, cloud services have no limit to their lifespan, and the maintenance and upgrades are not the owner’s responsibility.
On-Premises Server vs. Cloud Storage
Before migrating to the cloud, PAWS had an on-premises server that ran the organization’s services and stored their data. Employees had to be on-site or connect to the server through a VPN to access the data. With cloud storage, that data can be accessed from anywhere by logging into the organization’s SharePoint site.
Unlike servers, which have an average lifespan of three to five years, are prone to more failures the older they get, and require the owner to pay for maintenance and upgrades, cloud services have no limit to their lifespan, and the maintenance and upgrades are not the owner’s responsibility. In PAWS’ case, Microsoft handles the ongoing costs of keeping things up to date.
Additionally, using cloud services means PAWS leaves much of the security to Microsoft. The nonprofit won’t have to worry about patching its servers, but it will be responsible for things like configuring multifactor authentication and preventing employees from logging in on personal devices.
Crosby said moving to the cloud has two major benefits: accessibility and financial savings. Replacing a server comes with a large upfront cost of tens of thousands of dollars, but cloud services are possible with a low monthly fee for each user. It’s a major difference for a nonprofit that doesn’t have the same funding as a for-profit business.
“It’s convenient to have it where I don’t have to get on the VPN,” Crosby said. “It’s nice not to have the additional expense of the VPN … and all that other stuff.
“It’s a cost-saver.”
Cloud storage slightly differs in how employees will share and access files, but the navigation is more or less the same. In fact, Microsoft allows you to view SharePoint files on your computer, just like how you would view files on a server by navigating to the corresponding drive. Features like this flatten the learning curve, but Crosby said the unknown of cloud storage was her team’s main concern.
“We had no hesitation,” she said regarding the decision to move to the cloud. “The only thing is you’re always apprehensive of the unknown because we didn’t know what it would look like or what it all meant. How does it function? So, it’s just that learning curve of knowledge, basically, and what the differences were. And then teaching 60 people the difference between a server and (the cloud).”
Crosby added the most challenging part of the migration was not the transition itself but getting all PAWS employees to organize their files and figure out as a team what data is needed, what data isn’t needed and how to efficiently organize it on the cloud.
To break up the migration into small steps rather than one large changeover, PAWS employees scheduled one-on-one meetings with HT engineers. The engineers worked with each employee to configure their cloud account and assist with educating them on how to access their files.
New technology certainly can be a scary proposition for executives as they don’t want to disrupt their operations or make things worse. However, Crosby had just two words for organizations that may be on the fence when it comes to cloud migration.
“Fear not,” she said. “I think that (HT engineer Matt Warner) walked us through the process very gently, so it made the transition good. It’s just more or less understanding the difference between the two, and once you learn it and understand what it really is, you’re like ‘OK, I got it.’
“It’s not hard, it’s just connecting dots.”
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