On-demand or on-premise?

Atollon Article | Product news | 18/12/2007

What are the benefits of using on-demand solution compared to on-premise and vice versa. Read why our clients are choosing on-demand (hosted) solutions and what are the reasons for implementing the system on-site.

What are the reasons of customers choosing on-demand solution?

Reasons for on-demand model

Source: Forrester Research

Group of advantages	Description	Example
Technological savings	These advantages consist in software purchase costs savings, hardware costs, communication infrastructure and equipment required for its operations and servicing.	Company does not need to invest into expanding data center. Lower yearly investment into hardware infrustructure of the company.
Enhanced productivity	Increased productivity, employees can work more effectively, people are transferred to another position or their count is decreased.	The company does not need to recruit new IT specialists.
Improving company procedures	Realised once customer is able to change and improve its procedures (compared to the previous category, in which the procedure remains the same, but its effectiveness improves).	Higher focus can be invested into core company activities.

Atollon benefits of choosing on-demand model		Risk of on-demand model	Atollon solution to on-demand risks
Everything under one roof	Atollon makes your life easy. We take the responsibility to select the best resoruces (software, hardware and network infrastructure) to manage customer's system. The customer receives the whole solution in one package. The customer does not need to take the decision about every little piece of the system operations, and therefore can focus just on cruitial implementation tasks.	Application availability	The risk is reduced due to usage of brand-name servers (IBM, Dell, Sun) and redundand hardware and networking infrastructure. Our hosting partners belong to best solution providers. The hosting centre is physically secured, batterries and power-generation facilities ensure uninterruptible power supply, internet connectivity is multi-source, using optical cabling. The whole system availability is secured using Service Level Agreement.
Predictable costs	Costs for operating the solution are based on montly payments, compared to traditional on-site implementation model, they do not have any hypes, they are easily predictable. The level of costs also makes the system accessible to small organizations.	Application performance	The application is written to handle large amount of data, in order to ensure fast system response, we monitor its performance on-line. The server load-balancing is established using advanced virtual server infrastructure based on Linux.
Speed of use	It is possible to implement the solution within days or week, not months, which is used-to be in on-site implementation model. The system is operated on Atollon's own, proven infrastructure.	Data loss and data fraud risk	Servers are physically safe-guarded, only authorized personnel have access to servers. The access to the system is safe-guarded using strong firewall with strict configuration. Application itself has its own strong application-level security on the server-side.
Possibility to try the solution	In case you are interested, you can test the system for 30 days for free. In the traditional form, there are some costs involved.	Provider risk	Our company provides application hosting services since 2000. The company itself has arranged for insurance covering risk of damages. In case of finishing its activities, Atollon undertakes to find partner, that would (under similar conditions) provide Atollon's on-demand solutions. If this attempt would fail, Atollon provides the customer with on-site application license.
Easier upgrades	System upgrades are fully in Atollon's responsibility. The customer receives the system in its best proven version.
Minimal requirements on IT professionals inhouse	The customer does not need to employ number of IT specialists in order to run the solution, neither does have to own specific know-how. Atollon ensures the system operations using own experienced staff.
Possibility to distribute workforce	The provision of internet application is appreciated mainly by customers that have their employees in various locations, or who employ mobile workers.
Focus on core business	Implementation and service of the system may, for a short time, employ various professionals in the extent, in which it will cover their time against the time they could spend on core business. The on-demand model helps organisations spent their time on core business rather than management of the system.