Hosted vs. On-Premise - Reaping the Benefits of Both for Your Business

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In a still reeling economy in which every cent counts and enhanced business productivity is critical, it is perhaps not all that surprising that Gartner contends the worldwide public cloud services market will grow to $131 billion worldwide, representing an 18.5 percent from the $111 billion in 2012. That's because the benefits offered by a hosted cloud solution are vast, from substantial cost savings to augmented business productivity to more seamless business development.

In fact, cloud is enjoying widespread adoption across the industries, from call centers to universities and colleges to government agencies. One area that is quickly casting an eye toward cloud deployment is the business communications service space, as companies increasingly consider the benefits of migrating voice services to the cloud and replacing legacy technologies such as PBX and fax with IP-PBX and FoIP.

But with a lot of trepidation surrounding the cloud-particularly when it comes to security-as well as concerns over pricing points, one question still circulates amongst those in the business communications service industry: to migrate to the cloud or not?

Let's take a look at the chief differences between on-premise, the traditional method of installing and customizing software on computers that reside inside a company's own data center, and hosted, or using a third-party cloud provider to run client software at a remote location.

On-Premise

There are a multitude of benefits afforded by an on-premise solution-namely, control. Companies that deploy this model enjoy control over all of their systems and data and, perhaps even more importantly, the peace of mind that comes from knowing that critical business infrastructure resides in-house. In fact, data security is one of the chief impediments to widespread cloud adoption. Specifically, a 2013 IDG Enterprise cloud computing survey revealed that 42 percent of cloud-based projects are eventually brought back in-house as a result of security concerns.

In addition to having internal oversight of data, on-premise models allow companies to have dedicated IT staffers for maintenance; support and custom disaster recovery plans. But on-premise is not without its drawbacks, from cost prohibitive hardware and software to limited storage capacity to having to keep up with new features and functionality.

Hosted

There's a reason 49 percent of executive-level managers view cloud computing as transformational, according to the aforementioned IDG survey. Needless to say, a hosted model offers countless benefits, some of which we break down below:

1. CAPEX savings: By enlisting the services of a hosted provider, the burden of purchasing and maintaining hardware moves from your shoulders to those of your provider, thereby significantly slashing your CAPEX budget. And since hosted models offer pay-as-you-go pricing, you no longer have to waste resources on unused capacity.
   
   
2. Enhanced Business Productivity: From being able to streamline processes to improve accessibility to monitor projects more effectively, a hosted environment allows you to achieve unprecedented business performance across the board.
   
   
3. Increased Scalability and Speed: Since companies no longer have to invest time in buying and setting up hardware and software, they can seamlessly scale up or down depending on their usage of services on the cloud. This frees up companies' internal teams so that they can focus more on innovation instead of managing resources.

The Best of Both Worlds for Business Communications

With so much ambiguity surrounding hosted vs. on-premise, many companies are left searching for a way to enjoy the benefits of both, no matter their deployment choice. Fortunately, Fonality is uniquely qualified to offer the same experience, features and service levels to its customer, whether they choose to deploy in the cloud or on-premise.

At Fonality, customers call the shots as to their deployment model and can take advantage of the expertise of the Fonality team when trying to decide. Whether they are looking for an on-premise solution featuring an "as you go" payment option-typically a benefit reserved for hosted deployment-or searching for a hosted solution granting the level of control usually only associated with on-premise, Fonality has a robust set of business communication offerings.

For more on Fonality's hosted and on-premise solutions, click here.

Also on UCStrategies.com on this topic:

• UCStrategies Discussions: PBX Augmentation or Replacement, and Premise vs. Cloud (or Hybrid) , Industry Buzz Podcast