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V O L . X X V N O. I V F E B R UA R Y 1 8 , 2 0 1 9 18 W hen a client asked for video conferencing, project man- agement and accounting, Pegas Technology Solutions helped the client migrate his company's operations to the cloud. Pegas, owned by William Oakes, is an IT services and solutions company in Fairfield. e client, David DiPerri, is a business broker and accountant who owns Prosper CI in Exeter, N.H. With Pegas's help, DiPerri migrated to the cloud for the applications listed above but also basics like file storage and remote desktop access. Now, says DiPerri, he works with clients and colleagues on projects in multiple locations, sharing data and achieving efficiency. Oakes says advantages like remote access and great data security are attract- ing the attention of his customers, most of whom, previously using on-site serv- ers, have migrated to the cloud. "I've always found, at least for Maine, the technology lags five or 10 years. But that gap has gone away substantially in the last two years or so," Oakes says. "People seem more comfortable with it now. A lot of it has to do with faster internet speeds. It also has something to do with younger people coming in and starting businesses, so it's more native to them." "Almost everybody is in the cloud, whether they think about it that way or not," says Matt McGrath, president of Portland-based Systems Engineering, a managed IT services and support firm. "Many lines of business applica- tions are delivered through the cloud. Many people have email or docu- ment storage that's in the cloud. Some industries are slower to migrate to the cloud. But overall, we're seeing con- sistent movement, either all at once or piece by piece. A very high percentage of our customers have some or all of their business functions operating in the cloud." What is the cloud and how does it work? IT service provides say cloud comput- ing has numerous advantages, with little downside – although there is some. Loss of internet accessibility to host- ing data centers, for example, can stop work at hosted companies. ere's a human component. Some businesses want to know their data is on com- pany premises. ey want to see their server's blinking lights, and they don't exactly know where their data is when it's in "the cloud." So what is the cloud? Evan Desjardins, president of Roundtable P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY More businesses migrate to the cloud But is cloud computing right for everyone? B y L a u R i e s C h R e i B e R F O C U S Matt McGrath, president of Systems Engineering, says "almost everybody is in the cloud, whether they think about it that way or not. I've always found, at least for Maine, the technology lags five or 10 years. But that gap has gone away substantially in the last two years or so. — William Oakes Pegas

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