One of the most popular trends today in business is moving from on-premise and maintaining business applications on internal servers to cloud based applications. There are several reasons for this trend but two of the most common are that it reduces internal costs, particularly IT costs, and a greatly reduced IT role in getting new solutions implemented. It is a win win for the business and IT sides of the enterprise. If you are looking at implementing cloud based applications it is important to remember that there are very significant distinctions on how applications are delivered in a cloud environment.
Public clouds (multi-tenant) vs. Private Clouds (single-tenant) – one of the considerations when selecting a cloud delivery model is will your application be housed in a public cloud or a private cloud? With most any application you can have that solution offered up in either configuration, the question is what does the application require? The more security sensitive or customized the solution is required to be for your specific business or process will be a determining factor in this decision. For instance, a CRM application may be be perfectly acceptable residing in a public cloud with the main application being shared by many users from different organizations. On the other hand some financial applications or other applications that require a higher level of security and/or customization to reflect your specific business and process may work better in a private cloud, in a single-tenant configuration.
Of course as is the case in any such choice, two factors that will weigh heavily on the decision are performance and cost. As a general rule, multi-tenant cloud hosted applications tend to be somewhat less expensive since cost is being spread over many more users. However your ability to drive greater performance may be limited. Conversely, while a single-tenant cloud hosted solution may be a little more expensive you have more control over the performance with the ability to add more “horsepower” if the application calls for it and of course, customize the application to fit your specific business processes.
Let’s introduce another layer to consider when looking at cloud hosted delivery. You can enjoy the benefits of the performance and customizations of a private cloud with lower price points approaching public clouds with a hybrid of sorts. While your application may not have it’s own dedicated servers as it would in a true private cloud model, your application will have its own private clusters within the designated servers so your application and data are not shared outside of your organization while still obtaining the economic benefit by sharing server space with other applications.
ICG can help you understand which model will work best for your business processes. ICG offers its back-office solutions in a variety of single-tenant and hybrid cloud models. Solutions such as Vendor Onboarding, Supplier Onboarding, Vendor Portal, Supplier Portal, Accounts Payable Automation, Workflow, Data Capture and much more. Contact ICG today for more information or to schedule a demonstration for your team.