With Office 365 and SharePoint 2013, Microsoft is placing increasing emphasis on the cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS), and companies that want to get the latest and greatest features may have to follow along. At the same time, SharePoint on-premises certainly will continue to have a strong place in the market, due in part to security concerns. Companies can get the best of both worlds with hybrid deployments, as described in an article from CMSWire.
Many organizations are concerned about the privacy of some data, so it makes sense to maintain an on-premises environment while leveraging SharePoint online for the collaboration tools, social features and document management. We have experience working with customers to successfully set up such hybrid environments.
Microsoft has made great strides with its recent products to help organizations create a seamless user experience between cloud and on-premises environments. Still, when planning for a hybrid environment, it’s important to carve out dedicated space within each and understand what role each will play. For instance, if you’re handling document management in the cloud, document management shouldn’t also be on-premises. It’s much easier to manage the user experience if you’re strategic about why and how you’re going to use the cloud and your on-premises systems.
We expect to see more hybrid deployments as organizations embrace the cloud. There’s a very strong value proposition with SaaS. While many organizations will likely continue to have at least a small on-premises environment to manage information that requires greater privacy or security, using the cloud for some business purposes — such as collaboration — makes sense because it reduces the IT resource demand and improves the overall cost of licensing.
Well-designed hybrid solutions also offer some additional benefits. Users can seamlessly see search results both from the cloud and on-site environments. The same goes for information such as business intelligence, which can be pulled from on-premises intelligence tools and leveraged in the cloud environment, according to the article. Directories should also be automatically synced between the on-premises and cloud environments.
Hybrid solutions can be great for organizations that have individuals or teams working remotely. End users, in fact, may never notice a difference, the article notes. They’ll just appreciate the findability, modern user interface and ability to get the best of both the on-premises and cloud worlds.
Source: CMSWire, August 2013
