With more businesses – both large and small – taking advantage of digital capabilities, network and data security have become prominent features for anyone looking to avoid a major disaster. While the idea of another data center for backup and disaster recovery might seem expensive, my colleague, Brian Heckert, notes in this article that cloud-based backup solutions may offer you more benefits than you think.

Although it’s true that most large organizations rely on on-premise backup solutions, many of those organizations realize that backing up to the cloud is making more and more financial sense. For those organizations that are just now looking into the cloud, the idea of building and managing another data center might seem formidable and expensive. But that’s not how it is; just the opposite is true.

Building and managing a remote and reliable data center for backup and disaster recovery is easier than you might think; it even makes good financial sense. That last part—good financial sense—is particularly important in this day of ongoing cost-cutting measures. It isn’t likely that the need to further decrease costs and increase efficiencies is ever going to fall by the wayside. (Try telling your finance department and shareholders that decreasing costs and increasing efficiencies no longer matter!)

Why does a cloud-based backup solution make sense? Two words: capital expenditure. Actually, it makes more sense to mention four key words: capital expenditure and operating expenses. Recent research demonstrates that organizations that implement cloud solutions are enjoying significant benefits, among them (1) no capital expenditure for hardware, (2) very little up-front cost, and (3) minimal administrative overhead. Those benefits become particularly important when you consider that more than 40 percent of respondents to a recent survey indicated that reducing IT infrastructure costs was the top benefit of backing up and protecting their data in the cloud. Here are the top five most common benefits:

1. Reduced IT infrastructure costs
2. Reduced complexity within the IT environment
3. Reduced IT personnel costs
4. Improved user productivity
5. Reduced power and cooling costs

An interesting aspect of benefit #3 is that reducing IT personnel costs doesn’t necessarily mean more workers in the unemployment line. Not by a long shot. Because cloud backup is a cost-effective way to protect your servers and computers, IT personnel who once worked on on-premises backup solutions can now focus on other important tasks; they can be repurposed to work on more strategic onsite systems and/or applications. It’s no surprise that organizations large and small—and everything in between—are becoming more and more reliant on digital capabilities. With those capabilities come opportunities for growth and success; however, the exposure to threats to data is increasing dramatically.

In the beginning, sending data to the cloud might have seemed like a challenging prospect, perhaps more bother than benefit. But that’s certainly not the case today. Security and trust are essential elements of the cloud. The uncompromising physical security of offsite data centers, the backing of third-party certifications and validations, the experience and reputation of the cloud provider monitoring and management, the ability to restrict data access and, should it ever become necessary, the capability of restoring data all contribute to keeping data safe, secure, and accessible.

Once you understand and embrace the benefits of the cloud, you can focus additional energy on supporting your business goals and doing more with existing resources. That kind of efficiency makes all kinds of good sense.

This article was originally posted on Mozy.com.