On your premises or in a data centre? How to decide the hosting question

One of the decisions from the first two weeks of the sprint sounds technical but is a business decision: where should the software run? On your own servers – or in a data centre we set up for you? Both are possible, neither is right in principle. Here is how to decide.

The two options

In your infrastructure. That can be a server in your building, the environment your systems house operates for you, or a cloud account in your name. What they have in common: the environment belongs to you, and someone on your side looks after it.

In a data centre, set up by us. A European, ISO 27001-certified data centre – the same kind of environment we run our own products in. We set it up and deliver the software there; the hosting contract is in your name, and you pay the running costs directly to the provider.

The software is the same in both cases

This is the most important point up front: the decision does not change what is built. It changes where it runs and who looks after it. So you can make it without it making the project larger or more expensive – and you can change it later if your business changes.

Five questions that carry the decision

1. Who looks after it when something goes wrong?

Servers need updates, backups and someone to check when they stop responding. Do you have an IT department or a systems house that already runs your servers today? Then your infrastructure is the natural choice, and we work with those people. Do you have nobody for it? Then the data centre is usually the more honest answer – there, the foundation is already looked after.

2. Where does your ERP run?

If the new software works closely with an ERP that runs on a server in your building, there is a good case for running it nearby. If your ERP offers an interface over the internet, or runs in the cloud itself, the location hardly matters.

3. Who needs access?

Only the office staff? Then the software can run purely internally. Field staff on smartphones, customers, suppliers? Then it has to be reachable from the internet anyway – and a data centre is built for that, whereas a server in the office first has to be secured for it.

4. Which rules apply to your data?

GDPR compliance can be achieved in both cases; the data centre we work with is in Europe. Some industries and some customers have additional rules of their own, for instance that data may not leave company premises. If you have rules like that, the question is answered.

5. What does it really cost you?

Your own hardware looks cheap because it is already there. Add the time someone spends on updates, backups and outages. The data centre costs a monthly fee that you pay directly to the provider – predictable, with no mark-up from us.

What applies in both cases

• You pay running costs directly to the provider. Hosting, app store fees and the like do not go through us.
• Ongoing operations are a separate agreement. The sprint delivers the software up and running. Who monitors it afterwards and stands by in case of outages is agreed separately and in writing – wherever it runs.
• You receive all access credentials and the documentation. With the data centre too, access is in your hands, not ours.

Our recommendation, honestly

For most mid-sized companies without their own IT staff, the data centre is the better choice: less for someone to look after, and reachable from the internet from day one. Those who have a systems house or an IT department that already runs servers reliably do well with their own infrastructure – we then work with those people.

We give the recommendation in the first two weeks, with reasoning and the trade-offs behind it. The decision is yours.