Tally on cloud. Is it feasible ?
100 years back, people were not ready to keep their money in Banks. Why ? because they thought that it is always safe to keep our money with ourselves. But, today, everybody prefers to keep money in Bank. Infact we are moving towards a cashless society.
Or take for that matter eCommerce. Just five years back no one was ready to buy online. Similar is the case with Travel booking, nowadays no one books ticket offline, everybody prefers online booking. Something similar is happening in Cloud Space also.
Although Cloud can be defined technically in variety of ways, most simple definition can be that application is “Hosted” somewhere, either on our infrastructure or rented infrastructure. Example is Gmail, Google Docs, Office365, SugarCRM etc. Infact any application that runs in browser or keeps data somewhere online, can be termed as “Cloud Application”
Now, comes a million dollar question. Can we keep our Accounts or ERP online ? In India most of SMEs use Tally, So lets evaluate whether Tally on Cloud is feasible. What questions you need to ask before putting your tally on Cloud.
Five questions before you put Tally on Cloud
Is my data safe ?
There has to be proper backup and disaster recovery mechanism with the provider. Some so called “Cloud Providers” actually keep server in their office, get a live IP and start selling Cloud services, Remember this can be fatal for your business. Check out whether there is proper backup mechanism and Disaster Recovery process/policy.
Also understand what is policy to have backup of your data. Can you keep a offline copy of your data ? if not
Is my data Private ?
Many times Cloud provider puts one server and many Tally instances on the same server. This can be hazardous. Best idea is to have water-tight, insulated, private and safe environment for every client. Otherwise your Tally Data can be hacked any time easily without much effort. So look out for service provider who maintains individual Virtual Machines for every client.
Also sometimes, you might require to restrict access to your Tally from certain IP address only, check out whether your provider provides that or not?
Is it economical ?
Don’t just count initial costs, get deeper into it. Both Onsite Tally and Cloud tally can have hidden costs. Sometimes in house Tally can have much higher hidden costs, Cloud option which might look costly at first glance, is always cheaper in long run (and totality).
Is it legal ?
There are many “Cloud Providers” who run their servers on pirated Windows and provide RDP access to their clients, remember you are also now part of that crime. Also check out the whether the Serial No. under which your Tally is registered. Is End User License policy of Tally allowing you to use Tally without proper license ?
Is it fast ?
If your cloud provider is using shared hosting with regular commercial hard-disks, it is bound to be slow, and more slow when the requirement or demand increases. Look out for a professional services which provides fast SAN based storage on SAS or SSD.