The Cloud as it is sometimes called today is not new. It is just new terminology. This is something that has been around in various forms for quite some time now. In fact EDS, EUR Datacenter, IBM to name a few have been doing this for MANY years.
RKL eSolutions has many clients with hosted ERP implementations. We have worked with Expedient, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Sungard to name a few. This includes hosted implementations of Sage 100 ERP, Sage 500 ERP and Sage ERP X3. In these scenarios the client owns the software but the software resides in a secure offsite location.
There are pros and cons to everything. Here is a small list of each that we have accumulated over the years based on our own and the clients experience.
Pros
- No need to purchase hardware (servers, possibly operating systems, switches, firewalls, etc)
- NOTE: each case will be different depending on your business needs
- 24 x 7 x 265 Service Level Agreement (SLA) for system uptime
- Provider responsible for system backup, Disaster Recovery, Failover Server of the infrastructure and the Operating System depending on your SLA
- Possible reduction of Internal IT talent and skills required
- You dictate timing of product upgrades
- Your own unique configuration to meet your unique business needs and processes
- Unlike generic one size fits all SaaS ERP Solutions that may be on the market.
Cons
- Pros come with a cost
- You need to have sufficient bandwidth for connectivity to hosted solution
- You need or should have a backup connection to hosted solution in case your provider is down
- Select a hosted provider that is stable to make sure they are around for the long haul
- Read the fine print of the contract and the SLA.
To learn more about On-Premise vs. Hosted vs. Cloud solutions read ERP Cheat Sheet: Cloud vs On-Premises.
