This series highlights critical considerations and best practices for upgrading, migrating and deploying SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint Online.
Learn what will work best for your business.
Part two of a series.
We are now seeing many organizations moving to Office 365, often starting with Exchange Online and Active Directory Federation Services in Azure. Companies that have already invested in SharePoint On-Premises deployment are now considering moving to the Cloud.
Before making the move to SharePoint Online, you have some key decisions to make. See the tables below.
We all know of the significant capital investment that comes with deploying SharePoint On-Premises. Companies with on-premises deployments benefit from owning the environment and the full functionality of SharePoint. This also means that you are responsible for administering and supporting the environment. With this in mind, should you go down the Office 365 route?
If you’re not looking to pay for hardware and software up front or for the ongoing maintenance and support costs, buying subscriptions to Office 365 may be a better option. While the monthly operational investment will be a lot lower than the capital expense of buying infrastructure, over time the subscription costs can add up. However, benefits of Office 365 include more robust hardware and services including patching, backup and disaster recovery.
Where should you start?
Some key decisions for staying on premises:
Some key decisions for moving to SharePoint Online:
However, our experience, especially in the past year, has shown a dramatic increase in the number of organizations considering SharePoint Online. According to the research conducted by The Radicati Group, Inc. in 2016, market share for SharePoint On-Premises is still higher than SharePoint Online as shown in the figure below.
The bottom line is that your decision of where and how to host your SharePoint deployment might not be a simple one. There are many key decision factors and relevant considerations. The limitations of some cloud-based functionality may not be suitable for some companies, but this is likely to change as SharePoint Online matures. Regardless of which direction you want to take, both short-term and long-term costs must be taken into consideration.
At Centric, we have used this method and other tools to help customers understand the details and make the best business and financial choices. Contact me to learn more about how we can help you with SharePoint adoption.
