While more and more enterprise-sized organizations are moving their contact centers to the cloud, many still hold concerns for various reasons, and want to keep their data on premise. Their reservations are generally centered on security, lack of control, and compliance. Views from both sides of the aisle are relevant and valid.
In our conversations with customers, we often hear things like “management wants everything in the cloud” or “we don’t want cloud migration because we need to protect people’s privacy.” Fortunately, INI is well-versed in both scenarios and well-equipped to help, because we can deploy the Avaya Experience Portal (AEP) platform in either environment. Let’s take a close look at some advantages of running AEP in the cloud or on premise.
Cloud
• Space – When utilizing the cloud, you don’t have to worry about the physical space required to hold countless servers. Need more servers but out of square footage? No problem. Moving offices? Easy. Because your data lives in a datacenter in a remote desert, the physical space of your racks becomes someone else’s challenge, not to mention the costs associated with facilities like electricity and bandwidth.
• IT as a Service – Keeping servers updated with the most current software and replacing aging machines is not only a time-intensive task, but it’s never ending and generally requires dedicated IT personnel. Moving everything offsite to the cloud frees up your IT and telecom support resources to focus on more mission-critical tasks.
• Budget Allocation & Savings – Most organizations dedicate separate budgets for capital expenses and operational expenses (CapEx/OpEx). Traditionally, IT falls in the CapEx budget, meaning the cost of on-premise equipment and maintenance eat up a large chunk of that. However, financial departments generally include ‘as a service’ costs such as cloud storage and Software as a service (SaaS) in the OpEx budget. With a cloud-based IVR, the costs are shifted to operations, offering IT some budget relief they can use in other ways.
We’ve already touched on a few ways that a move to the cloud can save an enterprise-level organization money—facilities, IT personnel, electricity—but what about the equipment itself? The cost of purchasing and licensing servers adds up very quickly. With a cloud service, those costs are the responsibility of the cloud provider. In addition, it is the cloud provider who is responsible for keeping the platform updated. And while you do pay for their service, it’s been reported in multiple studies that around 80 percent of companies save money with the cloud.* (Invensis 2015)
On Premise
• Security – One of the biggest concerns about the cloud is security. No matter how much effort cloud providers put into shoring up security and privacy, there will always be those who feel their information, and their customers’ information, is safer in their own possession. Especially with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements in Europe, ensuring privacy, and being able to report on it, is crucial for many organizations. An on-premise AEP system helps ensure only the organization selects who is authorized to access information, and that preventative measures such as applying security updates and patches are in place and being followed.
• Control – If there is a problem and an organization has access to its own servers and facilities, it can rest assured that it’s not relying on a third-party organization to care enough to move quickly toward resolution. Downtime can negatively impact a brand and customer experience suffers, affecting revenue and other KPIs. When a system is hosted on premise, there’s more opportunity for quick correction or an internal fix. Similarly, in the cloud there’s no guarantee the outsourced provider uses the same equipment an organization would choose to use. While service-level agreements can account for such things as equipment availability and response times, when an organization is buying its own equipment for an on-premise system, it can ensure it gets exactly what is required, exactly when needed.
• Vendor Independence – According to The Next Web, “many corporations are worried they’ll be tied into using the vendor, either contractually or because software has been built expecting a certain architecture.” Large organizations who house their servers on premise aren’t subject to long, expensive contracts. While many cloud providers have moved away from that model, offering short contracts and even pay-as-you-go models, many CTOs feel more comfortable when they don’t have to rely on another organization to adhere to proven business best practices.
When deploying and managing AEP for contact centers and IVR, both on premise and cloud installations have merit. INI’s years of experience integrating AEP in both environments make it a valuable resource for helping you determine which model meets your organization’s needs. And once it’s time to deploy, we can help there as well.