With the way technology is evolving today, it may seem like the Cloud is taking over. Many providers are pushing hosted solutions to the point of it being the only option. While hosted deployments have many benefits, they are not necessarily the best option for every single circumstance.
One benefit of hosted solutions, for example, is continuity. In the event of a power outage or natural disaster, on-premise options become isolated while hosted solutions allow users continuous access.
On the other hand, choosing an on-premise deployment option gives you and any other users complete control over all servers and data. With that comes peace of mind and security, but also more complexity.
For example, offering an on-premise solution may have geographical constrictions. If a customer right in your area has a problem with their server, you can drive over and fix it. If your customer is halfway across the world, fixing it becomes more challenging. On-premise customers must have a skilled support team to monitor and repair problems that arise.
As you can see, there are pros and cons to either choice.
So I asked the question:
‘When does it make sense to deploy an on-premise solution?’
The answer I received was a two-fold response.
Option 1
Organizations that would prefer their data on-site, like hospitals, law firms, or government offices. Any organization with confidential and highly classified information that cannot be released to the public may feel more comfortable using an on-premise solution.
To better explain, I consulted Cian Maher, CTO of Intellicom and one of Bicom Systems’ Product Managers.
“In Ireland, our government has its own network that its system resides on. So no matter where your government office is, all the data connections and internet connections are deployed from that one government network. They have a specialized IT team to look after all the systems and connections. It is important for the government to use an on-premise solution so that they can have control of their data and protection on-site.”
Can you think of another example that isn’t the government?
“At Intellicom, we work with many customers in the government, hospitality, or medical industry who use on-premise solutions. Autoline Insurance is a perfect example. They have five different sites and one centralized on-premise system. Autoline uses an MPLS network to link all their sites together! Using an on-premise system allows Autoline to have a centralized PBX that controls all of its branch offices.”
Option 2
Organizations that are NOT getting Internet from their telephony provider.
What do you mean by this?
“The number of extensions you can have will depend on your connectivity. If you are an MSP who offers telephony and Internet, you can offer the maximum number of extensions because you own the internet circuit and have complete control over the bandwidth. But if you are only providing the telephony services, you have no influence over their internet capabilities.”
So, if you do not have great internet, you may even be unable to offer hosted?
“Correct. More rural areas do not offer the best internet. Based on your location, some businesses have no choice. The available bandwidth they have will not support a hosted system, so they must connect with a traditional PSTN.”
“However, this means the organization will not have to invest in new hardware or change their network. The intelligence of our solutions allows users to use their existing network and hardware.”
Check back next week when we continue our interview with Cian!