In-House vs Cloud Hosting

As a growing company, you have to decide whether to go with an in-house hosting solution or use a cloud-based solution. Both have their pros and cons, so it’s important to consider both options before making your final decision. In this post, we’ll break down the key points of both in-house and cloud hosting so you can make an informed decision about which option is right for your business.

In-house hosting has a few advantages over cloud hosting. First, it’s usually cheaper for smaller businesses since they don’t have to pay a monthly fee for hardware maintenance. However, in most cases, it still ends up being more expensive than a subscription if you don’t have many employees. It also doesn’t give your business access to any third-party software that may be useful or convenient. You can customize your server however you want—but doing so takes time and energy that could be better spent elsewhere. An in-house server is great if you need a lot of control over how everything works, but for most small businesses a hosted solution is better because it gives them access to additional tools without much hassle or expense—especially since bigger companies often get steep discounts from their hosting providers. Due to economies of scale, big companies can purchase services and products at lower prices than smaller ones.

For onsite hosting, you’ll need a robust and powerful hardware solution to support your growing business. If you don’t have access to reliable power or high-speed Internet—or if you don’t have someone who can maintain your servers on a regular basis—an in-house solution could prove problematic. It’s also important to remember that as your company grows, so will its data storage needs. You’ll need ample space in order to store your customer information securely for years to come. Onsite is typically more expensive than cloud solutions, which typically pay for themselves within three years. Finally, once you purchase all of your hardware, software licenses and upgrades are yours forever; any problems with upgrades or maintenance are yours to address down the road when these products are no longer covered by their warranties. Companies often opt out of onsite because they want: Reduced initial costs: Companies opting for a cloud option often start small but expand quickly—and lose money while they scale up. By moving to a SaaS/cloud model, companies get fast ROI by paying only per user instead of having to upgrade immediately.

It’s not for everyone, but cloud hosting can come with a number of benefits. If you need to expand quickly, it’s handy to know that you can add resources in a matter of minutes. You can also save on energy costs because you won’t be running additional machines just to handle peak loads; instead, most cloud hosts spread out their investments over several physical servers and can allocate more resources when your traffic is highest. And if something goes wrong? Your service will probably stay up.   A 2012 study by cloud management company RightScale found 99 per cent uptime across all surveyed providers. For comparison, Forbes reports Fortune 100 companies typically have an uptime of around 99.984 per cent—and that’s without spending thousands or millions of dollars each month on redundant hardware!

With hosted solutions, you rely on a company for server space, maintenance, monitoring, and security. If something goes wrong or if you need assistance from a human being, that’s who you call. Depending on your situation and preferences, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. For example, if you run an e-commerce site where downtime costs money (and revenue), it may make sense to stay in control and handle all hosting functions in house. But what about the cost? Obviously, it’s easier to predict expenses when everything is handled internally rather than paying a bill every month. It comes down to weighing risk versus reward, time spent versus time saved, and so forth. The best approach is often different depending on your situation. Being familiar with both options will put you ahead of most business owners—plus, it never hurts to play devil’s advocate with yourself!