One of the questions that keep popping up during our meetings with potential customers is “Is the cloud for me?”. To say that cloud is a future of IT, would be an understatement. Cloud is HERE. NOW.
One of the questions that keep popping up during our meetings with potential customers is “Is the cloud for me?”. To say that cloud is a future of IT, would be an understatement. Cloud is HERE. NOW.
If you are like most of our clients, you have some idea how it works. We decided to provide you with an exhaustive list of PROs and CONs of cloud vs. on-premise implementation, so you have a complete picture in your mind before making any decisions.
Here we go…
Online
- Very fast implementation of a standard system – you can set it up and running in a matter of days, not weeks or months (+)
- Monthly per user payments, especially convenient for corporate accounts since it enters your OPEX not CAPEX (+)
- A flexible model (you can reduce the number of users after a year) – the system can scale up and down according to your organization needs (+)
- No need to invest in hardware, IT personnel, server and database licenses, etc. (+)
- 99.9% uptime at its data centers guaranteed by Microsoft (+)
- Datacenters and backups in European Union (Ireland, The Netherlands) (+)
- Some limitations in reporting (no direct access to SQL database) (-)
- An obligation to upgrade at the time set by the software producer (-)
- Data limitations; additional data storage paid extra (-)
On-premise
- Your system is installed on your hardware behind a company firewall (+)
- An ability to follow your own upgrade and development strategy (+)
- You are the owner of the licenses (+)
- No restrictions to reporting (+)
- No data limits (the only effective limitation is your storage space) (+)
- Relatively high upfront investment which is your CAPEX (-)
- It is necessary to invest in hardware, IT staff, additional licenses (Windows Server, SQL), etc. (-)