Cloud computer will help charities gain maximum donations

Big charity events certainly create special moments as well as raising much needed funds, but they can be a technological nightmare for the organisers if they do not have the correct IT infrastructure.

This is according to Dan Sutherland, chief executive of Carrenza. In a recent feature in the Guardian, he said creating an IT system capable of coping with mass volumes of traffic in a short space of at time and at a reasonable cost is an issue all charities have to deal with.

However, he says that cloud computer is the solution.

He explained: "Rather than having a room full of servers that go unused for over 300 days of the year, cloud computing offers the opportunity to scale-up capacity when you need it.

"We've been working with Comic Relief, for Red Nose Day and Sport Relief since 2008 and have created one of the first cloud-based charity donation platforms.

"This approach means that Sport Relief doesn't have to run physical infrastructure all year round, but can scale up by a factor of around 400 times in the peak period."

He added that this kind of system also has huge benefits to the environment because masses of servers are not needlessly eating up energy.

Mr Sutherland said that it is still early days for cloud computing, but the future will undoubtedly see more businesses in the commercial, public and charity sectors embracing its benefits.

The charity sector in particular will begin to use it more and more as it allows them to gain access to what is at present a relatively untapped online market.

Indeed, research released as part of the government's Giving Green Paper found that while 58 per cent of Brits shop online, just seven per cent have ever made a charity donation through a website.

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