PLM and CAD software has traditionally been installed on-premise, but according to an IDC whitepaper (available at the foot of this article), this is changing. An increasing number of organisations are evolving their cloud strategies to prioritise SaaS (software-as-a-service) to progress digital transformation and to reap several advantages which cloud platforms have over an on-premise installation.
It’s important to note that cloud working brings advantages more consequential than the replacement of old IT infrastructure. With their role in ecosystem innovation, cloud platforms can bring about growth as well as change.
On-Premise vs Cloud Platforms: Upgrades and Ecosystems
There’s a reason that software companies are moving towards Saas (software-as-a-service) as their primary means of distribution. There are some clear-cut end-user advantages to deploying software on a cloud platform with good architecture. Not only does this overcome some on-premise infrastructure challenges, but it also enables entirely new ways of working through ecosystems.
- ON-PREMISE upgrade challenges: Customers often stay on outdated versions of software for too since customisation makes upgrades difficult. They are, therefore, unable to take advantage of functionality and security upgrades. This ultimately slows digital transformation and limits collaboration and data sharing.
- CLOUD upgrade benefits: All users are always up to date on the latest version of the software and can benefit from the updated features immediately. This can boost productivity in unexpected ways. For example, students using software at university will already understand the most current features when hired, allowing them to become productive employees more quickly.
- ON-PREMISE ecosystem challenge: On-premise installation runs on a closed system, which does not support ecosystem innovations available to cloud platform users.
- CLOUD ecosystem benefit: On a unified and agile cloud platform, data can easily be shared between ecosystem partners, which encourages collaboration and co-innovation. Ecosystems increase responsiveness and allow companies to provide the personalised experiences expected by modern customers.
Other Challenges of Running Software On-Premise
- Upgrading to the newest version requires significant investment.
- Data stays locked in older data formats and cannot be shared easily.
- Customers need to purchase, deploy, operate and upgrade their own IT infrastructure to run the software. This is something which leading edge cloud users in business are moving away from with cloud platforms.
More Benefits of Moving to a Cloud Platform
- Instant access to the cloud service enables faster time to market, which accelerates competitiveness.
- Immediate consumption of cloud resources and access to an always-on digital platform leads to faster time to value for organisations.
- It provides a seamless and frictionless platform experience which is highly secured and efficient.
- Users can enrich their data with metadata that can be used from multiple stakeholders in the organisation, such as engineering, HR, sales, marketing, and production.
- A marketplace for cloud services enables customers and partners to create new revenue-generating services on the cloud platform based on their own IP.
- Flexibility to adjust the project scope along the implementation journey. With a cloud platform, adding users on-demand or expanding the functional scope is easy.
Why Choosing the Right Cloud Platform is Important
There are some challenges to be aware of if adopting multiple or large-scale cloud platforms. It is therefore important to choose the right cloud platform in order to:
- Mitigate network latency. The architecture of a platform plays a key role in reducing the network latency which commonly occurs when large data sets are transferred to and from the cloud.
- Avoid the data fragmentation which typically happens when a large number of cloud services are employed.
- Cope with the potential complexity of driving security and governance policies across a variety of cloud services.
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Download the Full IDC Whitepaper
There’s more where that came from. If you’d like to read more about Digital Transformation Built on the Cloud or follow any of these statistics to their source, you can download the full whitepaper below.