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Should you be hosting your ERP on Cloud.
ERP is the lifeline of any company and the company cannot afford even a minute of downtime. Hence the question of where to host the ERP system becomes vital.
One of the ways to ensure that, is to own a good server machine to host the ERP software. But server machines come with their own hassles of maintaining them and keeping them up all the time. One also needs to back up the data systematically and protect from the threats of viruses and ransom-wares. Hence in order to have your server you need dedicated people to take care of it. It doesn’t end there. You also need a chilled environment, racks to store the server securely and a power backup to keep it up during power failures. This is already too expensive and not to forget the cost of all the software licences that are required.
The bigger companies may afford all that it takes but for smaller companies it becomes highly unaffordable. So what is the solution? Well the solution is to go for the cloud. The ERP software can be securely hosted on the cloud without worrying about any of the hassles of maintaining the server.
Many feel that cloud hosting could be costlier but in fact it is the other way round. There are many renowned cloud companies offering their cloud services at a fraction of the cost of what one would pay for hosting it on a local server. Some of the most value-for-money offers are from big giant hosting companies like AWS (Amazon), Google, Microsoft etc.
Some also mistake Software as a Service (SaaS) model of ERPs for cloud. This is because these companies have coined the term “Cloud ERP”. SaaS based ERP systems do use cloud but it is their own managed cloud. But there are many companies in the market that offer just the cloud where you can host your ERP software.
Cloud pricing works on pay per use. The calculations may appear complicated but with some help it is easy to understand. Most cloud companies provide a calculator to estimate the cost. The cost goes down considerably as we commit for a longer period like say a year. Also one can exploit the feature of elastic computing. What elastic computing means is that the server automatically scales up and scales down according to our requirements. It means your bill goes down at night and on holidays when the usage is not there.
One can also use other software from a plethora of software available on cloud on a trail basis. This is such a big advantage that we don’t need to buy any software to try it out. We can just rent it for a short while.
Many ask me whether their data will be secure on the cloud. The data is actually more secure on the cloud as the security is much better than what a small company can afford with its limited resources and options. Also it can be configured to open only from your business locations. On top of it all good ERP systems have user level access permissions.
Many of our customers have shifted to cloud have realized that they can convert all their other computers to Linux OS. This not only saves the company from exorbitant software licence cost but also has a better defence against viruses. Linux based operating systems have browser, which is sufficient for the ERP to work. Popular browsers like Chrome and Firefox can be installed.
So then does it make any sense for a small-scale company to host their ERPs locally? Well it does in case the data is extremely sensitive and it is worth spending that much more.
