Cloud services have gotten a lot of attention from small to medium-sized businesses in recent years, and for good reason: It’s expensive, risky, and resource-intensive to manage your IT infrastructure.

At the same time, a lot of SMBs have held off on migrating to the cloud, for equally good reasons: Most cloud services – and cloud service providers – aren’t prepared to serve their companies optimally.

Every company’s IT needs are unique but try telling that to one of the global monoliths dominating the cloud services arena. It’s pretty much a given that signing on for service with most cloud services companies means giving up a good deal of flexibility and control, as well as sacrificing any claim to customization or personalized service.

At Red Level, we saw this coming when we launched our MiCloud service over eight years ago. We knew that as technology changes accelerated, many of our clients would need a flexible, scalable cloud services solution, and MiCloud’s steady growth has shown that we were correct.

Red Level designed MiCloud to deliver the same speed, reliability, and features that the big companies could offer at a size – and a price point – that made sense to SMBs. Companies looking to step away from the hassle and expense of designing, installing, managing, and troubleshooting their on-premise servers, only to replace them every three years or so as technology evolved, were finally given a viable alternative.

Unlike the standardized, generally cumbersome one-size-fits-all offerings of the market’s bigger players, MiCloud offers some significant advantages: Scalability, control, and personalization. Since each business’s needs are different, MiCloud is designed to be configured precisely to meet those needs: Red Level engineers assess each client’s needs and match services to meet them, with the ability to add (or subtract) later as needed. While our specialists manage the system, clients retain the same degree of control and security as they would with an on-premise solution. And MiCloud adapts well to hybrid usage when appropriate: Manufacturers and others who need to retain an on-premise presence find that it integrates seamlessly with MiCloud, delivering the best of both worlds.

The biggest difference between MiCloud and the huge cloud providers, though, is rooted in who we are – and where we are. Red Level is a Michigan company serving Michigan businesses; the people who design, implement, and maintain each MiCloud system are locally based. They know the hardware and software of course, but more importantly, they know our clients and can deliver a level of knowledgeable, personal service that a team across the continent (or on the other side of the world) can’t match.

The pressure for companies to head towards the cloud is steadily increasing: The cost of infrastructure and the skilled personnel needed to run it is not declining, and an increasingly-mobile workforce is rapidly rendering the closed, on-premise network obsolete. In fact, recent estimates indicate that within the next five years, half of the American workers will do some or all their work remotely or from home; for such a workforce, always-available, get-it-anywhere tools and services will be an absolute necessity. Even the most reluctant companies are ultimately likely to wind up in the cloud – and MiCloud will be there to make the process as painless, cost-effective, and advantageous as possible.

For more information about MiCloud, visit our MiCloud Services page.