Cloud based solutions are very popular and becoming even more so every day. Estimates are that companies will continue to drive double digit growth in adoption of cloud based solutions well into the future. Although the benefits of cloud based solutions, both financial and operational, are well documented and fairly well established at this point, not all cloud solutions are created equal. Solutions like vendor portal and supplier portal, vendor onboarding and supplier onboaring, accounts payable automation (AP), dynamic discounting, workflow management, data capture and many other applications utilize the cloud to deliver functionality.
What is not yet common knowledge among users and buyers of cloud based solutions are the different types of cloud infrastructures and implementations which could have a big impact on the availability, performance, and security of your application and data.
First, lets take a look at the two main types of infrastructures for cloud based solutions, Private Clouds and Public Clouds.
Private Clouds
Your organization controls and hosts private clouds on servers, either within your intranet or at a third-party data center or cloud service provider. Your IT team team is responsible for management and maintenance of both the infrastructure as well as the application. Only assigned members of your company can access the applications and data. Benefits of a private cloud include generally better performance and security. The drawbacks of a private cloud include coming with large capital expenditures to stand up the cloud and the ongoing responsibility to support and upgrade the infrastructure and applications fall on your internal IT department.
Public Clouds
Public clouds are the most common and widely used. The cloud service provider houses, maintains, and operates the infrastructure in one of their data centers. Two common cloud service providers are Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft’s Azure, although there are many more. The cloud service provider is responsible for the management and maintenance of the cloud infrastructure. In public clouds multiple applications may be housed on the same servers and access may be shared among different companies. Public clouds are proving to be very secure despite some early concerns.
This leads us into the next point you should consider when selecting a cloud based solutions: Multi-tenant vs. Single-tenant.
Multi-Tenant
In a multi-tenant, public cloud environment, applications accommodate users from many companies. Each company’s data remains private, accessible only to its owners. However, many users can share the application’s functionality. The benefit to this approach is that it is less expensive for the application as well as the users. The downside for many is that multi-tenancy limits the functionality to what is there and users have to redesign their process to fit the application or pay for very expensive and risky customizations.
Single-Tenant
Single-tenancy can provide some of the benefits of a private cloud and public cloud. The infrastructure is still maintained by the cloud service provider and the application by the solution provider; however, the major difference is the application is designed specifically to meet the needs of your company’s individual processes. Multiple applications might still reside on shared servers, but individual applications are not shared across companies. The benefit of single-tenancy is customizing your application to fit your process in a quick and inexpensive manner while still taking advantage of the cost benefits of cloud solutions.
Cloud solutions are not created equal, so be mindful to evaluate different options. Consider infrastructure, tenancy, cost, and flexibility of each option so that you make an informed decision for your organization. Contact ICG today to learn more about our suite of cloud-hosted solutions or to schedule a demonstration for your team.