One of the easiest ways to save money and time these days is to take your data, and push it to the cloud. Instead of managing machines, drives, and networks just so you can access and share data with your team, you can just have it all done offsite. In one fell swoop you don’t need to buy servers, manage servers, upgrade software, or even worry about backups (you make backups, right?).
This applies to large teams, small teams, and even teams of one. Putting your data in a professionally managed, secure, and up-to-date environment that is accessible from any device, anywhere is a game changer. Stop trying to be your own IT department, and buy your data management needs like you buy utilities. You have a business to run after all, why waste time being the resident network nerd?
One way many of my clients have been saving money and aggravation lately is to take their Filemaker solutions online too. In years past, serving your Filemaker solution so that your entire team could access it simultaneously and/or remotely would entail you buying a dedicated machine ($3K+), buying Filemaker Server ($1K-$2.5K), plus various levels of network/IP admin duties which you either do yourself, or pay someone to do for you (more $$). Repeat that purchase let’s say on average at least once every 5 years, just to keep up, and you’re looking at a minimum of $1K per year just to serve your data, usually more.
Fortunately, there are quite a few dedicated professional Filemaker hosting firms around the world. Their rates vary, but basically you can host easily host a Filemaker solution for around 25 daily users for less than $25 a month. These online hosting facilities offer all the tools you need to manage your database, its users, backups, etc. They’re online uptime is very reliable, speed good, and of course, they’re accessible from anywhere. You can hit your Filemaker solution from your laptop, iPad, or iPhone from anywhere as long as you’re online.
The only downside can be speed. Some very large systems may become unwieldy if the bandwidth of your office throttles its performance. Usually however, even with large solutions, speed can be fixed by more efficient coding and architecture.
Another concern for many is the security. Data in databases tend to be sensitive. All the hosting firms obviously do their best to keep all their servers, etc. secure. They almost certainly will be doing a better job than you could, since it’s a) their job, and b) their reputation. And besides, they still don’t have access to your actual database. It’s every bit as password protected as it is on your own machine, leveraging Filemaker’s security tools.
Here’s a short list of a few. Some of them even offer free demo hosting — upload your solution temporarily to gauge its online performance.
So, if you need to share your Filemaker database with anyone, your best bet is not to host it yourself, but to source that out to someone who can do it better and cheaper than you. LEss costs, and certainly less headache. Win win.
