"You're gonna have to serve somebody yes indeed. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord. But you're gonna have to serve somebody." - Bob Dylan

One way or another, your mainline business application, whatever it is, has to live somewhere. It can either be in the "cloud", hosted off-site by an Application Service Provider (ASP) or Software as a Service (SaaS) host, or it can be hosted old-school, on your own in-house server. We glanced at the ASP model (and the SaaS model by extension) in another blog entry, so let's look at the in-house server option for a few minutes.

You probably have a client/server model in your practice or business right now; it's the most common means of serving up applications within a business network today. But cloud computing is on everyone's mind these days, either as a viable option for hosting business applications or as something to worry about, as in, "should we move to cloud computing?"

Like the Cloud, client/server has its inherent strengths and weaknesses. A big strength; access to your mainline app, and its performance not being limited by the quality of your Internet Service Provider (ISP). I've seen some offices where that thought would send a cold chill down anyone's spine; the ISP service and support is so bad. Another strength; control. As in you have it with the client/server model. As in you don't have it (always) in the ASP/SaaS model.

Long-term cost is also a strength of the client/server model. With client/server, you buy your application, and other than a possible maintenance agreement, you're done. You own it. With an ASP or SaaS host, you pay each month forever. The upside is that there's usually no maintenance costs because the software isn't on your server. But there's a break-even cost where the cost of the ASP model will be higher than that of client/server. That cost can be significant over time.

A downside to client/server is the server part. Owning and caring for your own server comes at a cost, usually in terms of the hardware, the server software and some IT guy(s) to support everything. Of course, removing the server doesn't (as some ASP-types will tell you) eliminate the IT guys. You still have an office full of desktop & notebook systems connected to a network. And all that still needs continuing support. Sorry, the IT guys are here to stay ... in one form or another.

So, what's the right choice? A definite ... "it depends". There's no one "right" or "wrong" choice, just a bunch of factors to consider when selecting the right application hosting model for you. The ITeam will help you decide what that right option is. Call us and see how we can help! - Larry