What is the cloud? To put it in basic terms, it means that an external company hosts your databases on the servers in their data center, supported by their staff.
Why would we want someone else to have responsibility for our data, with all the risks, such as security, that it encompasses? As is often the case, it is about the bottom line and the potential cost savings of such a service. Fundamentally, you are buying software as a service (Saa). Paying for a service is a direct, non-taxable cost to the business and is considered an expense in most countries. This is known as operational expenditure, a service cost just like a gas or electricity utility bill. Your finance people probably refer to it as OPEX – operational expenditure.
Your company accountant can probably tell you that OPEX is going to cost far less in tax tan CAPEX – capital expenditure. Servers, SANs, network equipment and physical hardware all incur taxes and support costs, OPEX items don...