If your organization currently uses an older on-premises content management platform, such as SharePoint 2007 or 2010, it might be time for an upgrade.
If you’re going to upgrade, you face an important decision: Should you continue maintaining your on-premises environment by upgrading to SharePoint 2013 on-premises, or migrate to the cloud-based SharePoint Online? Both options have merits, so the right choice depends on your organization’s needs and external requirements.
To get a sense of the considerations, this blog posts looks at the three main benefits of both on-premises and cloud-based content management. First, let’s explore the benefits of choosing an on-premises option.
- On-premises management: With an on-premises solution, your organization has the option to manage content and data security as you see fit. Depending on your industry or line of business, you may have regulatory and compliance requirements that dictate the type and location of data storage you are permitted to use. These stipulations could determine whether you need an on-premises solution and if the cloud is even an option for you at this point.
- Familiar administration: If you already use (and like) an on-premises solution like SharePoint, upgrading to the latest on-premises version requires relatively little change in how your organization manages SharePoint administration. When you upgrade to SharePoint 2013 on-premises, for example, you’re still able to introduce customizations, such as application integrations. You also still have the ability to do business intelligence reporting through SharePoint sites against data that exists in your environment.In the cloud version, you do have the ability to use a customized user interface and plug into third-party data sources, but there are connectivity and data location restrictions. You may need to employ Windows Azure as a third-party hosting source for some of these customized applications and data sources.
- Familiar development platform: If you’ve spent a lot of time coding and programming for SharePoint on-premises, the cloud version is a new paradigm. SharePoint Online’s new app model would force some developers to consider a new framework when introducing customizations and creating applications for SharePoint.
With the cloud-based platform, you’re not really using customizations to alter the core infrastructure of your SharePoint platform. Instead, you’re coding and creating apps in a separate location, like Windows Azure, that can be registered as an app for SharePoint. Like the apps you have on an iPhone or Android mobile device, these SharePoint applications are tools that offer different ways to consume customized applications in the SharePoint cloud environment.
If you have the option to simply stay on SharePoint 2013 on-premises and keep doing what’s working, you may wonder why anyone would move to the cloud. Good question! Let’s look at three key benefits of cloud-based enterprise content management:
- Reliable performance: Maintaining a content management platform requires the right hardware and expertise. If you don’t have adequate support in place, your platform may be slow and unreliable, and functions like enterprise search might not perform well. The complexity of running SharePoint on-premises, for example, tends to result in frequent downtime and poor performance. These aren’t intrinsic problems with the platform; the cause is typically how an organization is managing that platform.The advantage of using SharePoint Online is that you pass off the complex management to the people who designed it, who then must make sure that SharePoint runs smoothly. For Microsoft to manage the platform, you have to let it host your SharePoint platform in the cloud.
- Reduced overhead: The main value-add the cloud offers is reduced overhead costs for content management. Essentially, you reduce your upfront costs for physical infrastructure (purchasing, housing and powering hardware) and ongoing costs of maintaining and upgrading that core infrastructure. In the cloud, you have access to the latest technology without always having to spend time and money to upgrade.
- No more costly migrations: Content migration projects are often a painful experience for companies. They can be risky, expensive and frequently go over budget. But once you move your information to the cloud, you never have to migrate again — a huge benefit for any growing business. While you might have to first migrate to the cloud from SharePoint on-premises or whatever content management platform you’re using today, this could be your last SharePoint migration.
In the end, both options have merits, and the right choice depends on your organization’s needs and any regulatory or compliance requirements. If the cloud is an option, it offers significant added value, making it a strong choice from an economic standpoint.
Learn more about implementing the right enterprise content management platform for your organization by contacting Portal Solutions
