This is a regular question that comes up and quite rightly so. When moving to a cloud based system if anything security as a whole should drastically improve.

1) Your information will be stored is highly secure facilities

2) The people whom manage these facilities have to adhere to the very highest security measures

3) They are typically independently assessed on a regular basis both on physical security but also from the Data Protection commissioners

4) Irish or UK providers are governed under EU legislation and are controlled under EU law so data must reside within the EU. A good provider should be very aware of this procedure and should be able to produce the information on same

5) A good provider should also be able to offer additional layers of Data Security such as layered Data Encryption

In terms of access to your information and systems – this means you have access your data anytime anywhere. That means always-on access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Yes, your information is stored and backed up regularly. A good cloud provider will do so using multiple physical locations, meaning that if there is some unforeseen problem in a provider's data centre

For those not familiar with this, there is no one size fits all. A good provider should sit down and discuss the merits of both types of solutions with you and advice upon the correct fit, be that a cloud based system; an on-premise based system or indeed a Hybrid or mix of both.

In our experience for small businesses saving in the region of 50% can be achieved over time, while others the margin is not always as drastic it really depends on the solution employed.