CloudquestionsAfter the great discussion we had in our webinar this week, “Best Practices in Deploying Communication Applications: Cloud vs On-Premises vs Hybrid“, I thought I would expand on the questions that I included at the end of the webinar. So I’ll start with a series of posts about 7 questions to think about when considering a cloud solution versus an on-premise solution. These aren’t all the questions you should think about… but they are some good ones to get you started.

First up, let’s start with:

#1 Can the cloud offer better capabilities than what you can deliver in your enterprise?

Ultimately, this is the key question, right? Can the cloud do more for you than what you can do yourself?

If you already have a world-class, carrier-grade infrastructure with network security, geographic redundancy, etc, well… you are pretty much running your own “cloud”, and so a premise solution may be just fine for you. (subject to the other questions in this series) Some key considerations for running telecommunications in your own datacenters include:

  • Do you have enough connectivity to the PSTN?
  • Do you have redundancy in PSTN providers?
  • Do you have “burstability” to handle spikes in traffic?
  • Do you have 24×7 monitoring of all your telecom equipment?

For many companies, the answers in 2011 are that the cloud can very often provide better capabilities than the company can in its own data centers… but again, “it depends“.

The key is that you need to map out what capabilities you need to deliver your communications services… and then use that as a checklist when comparing cloud versus premise solutions.

As I said in the webinar, it’s very common for us to see applications start out in the cloud because there are so few barriers to get started (especially when we let you get started for free). As applications – and companies – grow, we see many of them stay in the cloud all the way, but some migrate to premise installations as companies take on more of their own infrastructure. Then, perhaps ironically, we see a migration back to the cloud as companies reach a larger size and decide they don’t want to run their own infrastructure.

Given that we offer both cloud, premise and even hybrid options (and do so for free to developers), we don’t really care which way you choose. You need to match the choice you make with the capabilities you need and that you may or may not already have.

Interested in learning more about how Voxeo’s cloud can help you?

Originally from Voxeo Blogs<