Pitching SaaS
Dedicated SaaS vendors used to say moving to their model was a no-brainer. You'd save on all those infrastructure costs and free IT staffers to do other things (and sometimes wink as those other things were often collecting unemployment). On-premises vendors used to say their model was a no-brainer. You control your infrastructure, it is more secure, and SaaS simply can't perform. And why would you want to pay every month for software you could simply own outright?
That has all changed. On-premises vendors by and large also have SaaS offerings. The choice is no longer a no-brainer.
Given that, it is up to IT to decide in a fair and balanced way. Chris Brenton from Cloud Passages goes through the options, the pluses and minuses. However, since Brenton is from a cloud company, he does err more on the side of SaaS, promoting the fact that SaaS doesn't involve upfront capital expense and remote access isn't limited by a VPN.
On the security front, Brenton gives the nod to on-premises for large shops with talented dedicated security staffs, while smaller shops may find more safety in the cloud.
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/31/2012 at 12:47 PM