The Power of Choice: Cloud v On Premise Hosted Applications

Transcription

1 The Power of Choice: Cloud v On Premise Hosted Applications No one can get away from the discussion about applications in the cloud. We have seen articles and editorials about technology trends and adoption in Crop Life, Seed Today, Farm Journal, The Wall Street Journal, and group discussions on the social networking sites such as LinkedIn. How does an agribusiness decide if the cloud is the right way for them to deploy solutions? And what exactly do we mean when we talk about the cloud? E-Markets shares some common questions and suggestions from our conversations with agribusiness as they look at these deployment options.

2 The Power of Choice Cloud v On Premise hosted applications Introduction: No one can get away from the discussion about applications in the cloud. We have seen articles and editorials about technology trends and adoption in Crop Life, Seed Today, Farm Journal, The Wall Street Journal, and group discussions on the social networking sites such as LinkedIn. How does an agribusiness decide if the cloud is the right way for them? And what exactly do we mean when we talk about the cloud? For this paper, E-Markets is talking about the choice of deploying your financials or ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) and back office or LOB (line of business) applications in one of two ways: in The Cloud or on premise at your facility. Cloud hosted solutions are those where E-Markets houses the hardware and operating systems and manages the installation, upgrades, daily backups and security of the solution; while the agribusiness pays a monthly fee for hosting and to license the financial and back office or CRM software via a subscription model. On premise hosted solutions are those where your agribusiness purchases all of the hardware and licenses the software required to run your applications; and has a person or team trained to administer the systems. Maintaining clean, accurate data; meeting availability requirements; securing the solutions and backing up the systems daily are part of the responsibilities of your agribusiness system administrator. When talking with customers and prospective customers about these deployment options the questions E-Markets personnel receive can be broadly categorized into those dealing with cost, risk mitigation, operational efficiencies and scalability.

3 We have addressed some of the most common questions below. When deciding which to use, ask yourself, do you have. Cloud On-Premise 1. A dramatic increase in 2. Multiple software systems? employees during busy season? 3. Remote locations/employees? 4. Poor internet access? 5. Strong, consistent internet connection? 7. Expected growth in the near future? 6. Your own software licenses? 8. Your own IT department? 1. Do you need additional software capacity at high volume times? a. One economic advantage of cloud based applications is the ability to lower your costs due to the seasonality of your business rather than scaling the on premise solution to meet your highest level of demand. If your agribusiness has a spike in need for system access during busy times such as planting and harvest; paying for licenses only when you use them might be attractive. 2. Do you have multiple systems to integrate? a. Have programs written specifically for your business that will not integrate to each other or your core business solutions? Keeping these solutions current and running efficiently for your agribusiness may mean that you need to keep them on premise. 3. Do you have remote employees or locations? a. When your selling territory spans a large geographical area; it may be impossible for paperwork to be turned in every day. The options are to have it sent via overnight delivery; sent by facsimile; have it scanned and ed to the office; or have the field sales manager bring the paperwork to the office weekly. Delays in processing orders or having information input incorrectly can be costly.

4 b. Solutions deployed in the cloud are available anywhere your employees have internet access, they can update orders and customer information from the field, and it will flow to the business office. 4. /5. Is there consistent, reliable internet access at your branch or headquarters locations? a. Solutions delivered via the cloud depend on the users having strong, consistent internet access. If this is not the case for your business operations, on premise is the better option. 6. Do you have ownership of software licenses already? a. Moving your applications to the cloud might not make sense if you have already invested in the software licenses and hardware to run the applications. However, you could consider moving your servers or software to a data center in a co-location arrangement, where the system administration and management is part of the service package; freeing up your IT team to take on other responsibilities. 7. Is your company growing rapidly? a. Acquiring new customers, new business units or locations requires software available to manage these customers, business units or locations. Deploying software in the cloud may be as fast as adding a new user and training them. 8. Do you have your own IT Department? a. An on-site staff that supports your user community, maintains and administers your financial and back office solutions gives the agribusiness some different options. Does it make sense to have some of your solutions deployed on premise at your location while others reside in the cloud? Employee self service, CRM or applications used by your field marketing team might be considered for a cloud deployment, while your core business solutions reside on premise, freeing up your IT staff for other projects. b. Cloud is good when your organization does not have an Information Technology (IT) department to support and administer the systems. c. Your data is a critical asset for your organization. It needs to be protected, backed up and available. Your business solutions need to be maintained, need to run quickly and consistently and be on the current release.

5 The power of choice. Choice does not mean the final decision; choice means you can change your mind. Start in the cloud, move your solutions to your facility or vice-versa; your choice. Need some of both? E-Markets can help you with that. E-Markets: The Power to Know. The Power to Grow. Links: