Things to consider before choosing a software Solution for your business
By the 21st century, the Internet changed the way companies did business. Computing capacity reached a point where it was possible to offer business application services to companies on a pay-as-you-go basis. So instead of setting up costly IT departments. Companies were able to procure hardware, software and storage solutions almost immediately. As internet speeds get faster and more popular, cloud based services will also start to grow as the price become more affordable. Small to medium businesses will start moving their services to the cloud as they believe it provides certain things that on-premise doesn’t such as being able to access all your files no matter where you are as long as you have a stable internet connection.
Factors that determine whether you should choose Cloud or On-Premise
Up until 2005 the most common software solutions were installed on a computer and ran behind a corporate firewall in your office and everything is controlled by you and your business, the drawback of this being that every user needs a licence. on the other hand, with the Cloud you can share services with multiple users in different locations through the Internet. It is not necessary to email or download the same data several times. What is more, the cloud model ensures that you only pay for what you use. Larger companies store data in the cloud as they have no need for it in their website; Netflix for example uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to store their films and TV series they have available to customers. With over 10,000 videos on Netflix, all stored in the cloud, they have surprisingly little problem with crashes or the server going down. The cloud isn’t for everyone but in 2016 alone, Netflix earned over 8 billion US dollars and have 93 million users, so it is fair to say the cloud is doing well for them! However there are always drawbacks with having this amount of people trying to access the same files and it does periodically go down for a few hours which can in rare occasions cause your content to be permanently destroyed if you are also using this service.
To Conclude
The on-premise delivery model is still the leader and it will take some time before the cloud services moves into the lead. As businesses require new infrastructure they will be weighing up the cost against cloud as opposed to on premise.
There are situations where some organisations choose the on-premise solution because they can have total control of their data. There are also situations where large capacity file shares and data movement may not be suitable for the Cloud. So With the On-premise solution your data is close to you and you’re in absolute control. In comparison, access to the cloud is via the Internet, creating security risks.
There are more brilliant advantages using the Cloud. It helps to reduce administrative operations and easily allocates resources to the right user. In addition, information can be shared using different devices. Any updates that need doing to the cloud are all done and paid for by the vendor whereas if you use on-premise you have to do the upgrades yourself at more expense.
Every business is different and there are many things to consider before choosing a solution. Take your time before deciding which product suits your business best as the wrong decision can cost you a lot in the future.
