...the Cloud vs On premise decision

Hi all,

The last few years, one of the trendiest topics of discussion is Cloud vs On Premise. Different groups of people in multiple forums keep on discussing whether it worth having an On Premise environment or migrating to IaaS or SaaS or PaaS will create more value? 

My opinion is that it depends...

I am not going to discuss the theory of the "Cloud" but generally my understanding with a couple of examples:

• IaaS are services that the vendors provides the hardware and you need to do the rest (Amazon Web Services, Windows Azure)
• PaaS are services that the vendor provides the hardware and the software but you need to build the applications (Oracle Managed Cloud services, SQL Azure).
• SaaS are the services that you only input metadata and data (Oracle Cloud Solutions, O365).

Opportunities:

It worth trying moving to the cloud because of the following reasons:

• Total Cost of operation
• Vendor consolidation
• Disaster recovery and High Availability
• Security and strict Cloud provider standards

 

Challenges:

Of course not every type of cloud is appropriate for everyone. So you need to consider:

• Do you need physical access and geographic location of your data storage? You should have an on Premise environment.
• Do you have limitations on hardware configuration? You should have an on Premise environment.
• You cannot use internet? You should have an on Premise environment.
• Are you afraid of the increased cost for system integration?  You should have an on Premise environment.
• Do you need full control of environment architecture? You can use IaaS.
• Do you have limitations on scheduling maintenance tasks? You can use IaaS.

EPM world:
 

After 3 years working with HFM cloud migration related projects, I believe that the high level questions that should start the discussion for a Hyperion architect are:

• Do you want to manage and configure your own hardware?
• Yes: On premise
• No, do you want to design the environment's architecture?
• Yes: IaaS
• No, do you want to manage applications?
• Yes: PaaS
• No, do you want to just manage your data?
• Yes: SaaS
• Did I miss anything? 
• I am sure

Epilogue

The word "Cloud" has different meanings to different group of people depending the role, the level, the market and the background. Due to the flexibility and the economies of scale, the "Cloud" market is growing fast and I am sure that we are just in the beginning. However, we need to remember that different customers, companies, people will require a different type of cloud.

These are my thoughts for tonight...