Web hosted IT for businesses. Good or bad?

[Oakie]

A person on our board has recommended that we move from running our own network with software as normal to one where the software is resident with someone like a telco or ISP and we access our software over the net instead of from our server. My previous employer looked at this and rejected it.
Our network has about 20 PCs in one location.
We don't have a resident 'IT fella' but we do have a Tech who'll pop in as required with about 30 minutes notice.

Can anyone who has worked in this sort of environment comment on any drawbacks or benefits that web hosted IT has shown them.

[ManDownUnder]

Advantages - total cost of ownership is likely reduced (i.e. no need for full time staff member, buying new hardware, software upgrades and licences etc).

Disadvantages
Performance will possibly take a dive
Secure data is out of your control
Upgrades etc will be done when they need to do them (not when you see fit).
A general loss of some control.

[paturoa]

Another advantage is that some one will actualy be doing backups.

[scracha]

All that's been said before.

Stating the obvious but your'e then dependant on your connection to the Internet and your hosting provider. Then again, if you pays your money and makes a good choice they'll probably do a better job than most "in house" IT guys & gals.

If you app is "mission critical" then I'd definately have at least two connections to the Internet, and I don't just mean two ADSL providers. Then again, if it's a really REALLY "mission critical" app then I wouldn't have it hosted remotely.

Securing a remote app is relatively easy but ensuring the server is secure isn't so easy.

[Pathos]

It's impossible to tell without knowing what software you need.

Does all the software you use have an online equivalent ?
Will everyone need to retrain with the online versions ?


I can't stand the idea myself. There is only one possible advantage of reduced costs if you have a decent existing system. The number of possible revenue loses are huge, network downtime and you're hosed.

[Oakie]

Another advantage is that some one will actualy be doing backups.

That is actually something my company does do well. Apart from having mirrored hard-drives, we do nightly and fortnightly backups held in a fire proof safe. I independantly backup my payroll software to the server and my own PC as well as taking a backup home after each updated payrun. (You just can't be paranioid enough when it's the payroll records I reckon)

[Oakie]

Does all the software you use have an online equivalent ?
Will everyone need to retrain with the online versions ?.

It's actually the same standard software that you run presently... eg, good old MS Word, Excel, payroll software, accounting package etc ... the only difference is it's accessed by internet rather than ethernet cable. I'm not sure whether they run say one install of Word for all their users of if each user has to have their own separate install at the host.

[boomer]

outsourcing is good, as long as you do your homework and define.. define.. what you want and need and get a contract which is clear on the above.

Other business's special in this allowing you to focus on what you know and do best.

As always, theres usually teething problems so its good to have a very good relationship with the partner and KEEP it that way..the key is in defining what you want and getting you partner to buy into that.. fully. It does or rather can work

[MOTOXXX]

Its a hard one to say?
depending on what you have exactly. It would be well worth your time and money to get a consultant in.

im a fan of having inhouse stuff, but im an IT person.

sometimes its not as simple as giving it to someone else to host. Especily if you have a web database with custom dlls n shit.

prices can go up by the host very quickly

[scracha]

It's actually the same standard software that you run presently... eg, good old MS Word, Excel, payroll software, accounting package etc ... the only difference is it's accessed by internet rather than ethernet cable. I'm not sure whether they run say one install of Word for all their users of if each user has to have their own separate install at the host.

Oh..umm...I thought you were talking bespoke server side applications written with a "thin" front end or webby interface (HTML, Java, coldfusion, etc). For "standard" apps I guess it depends how fast, how fat and how reliable your pipe is. Cable or dedicated connections maybe OK but you're just gonna have headaches using ADSL & SDSL IMHO.

[Drunken Monkey]

The solution may be citrix and/or windows terminal server based, in which case you don't need to worry about the apps being 'web friendly'. There can still be compatibility issues running in a TS environment. It also sucks if you're working with graphics and/or sound.

[ArcherWC]

The solution may be citrix and/or windows terminal server based, in which case you don't need to worry about the apps being 'web friendly'. There can still be compatibility issues running in a TS environment. It also sucks if you're working with graphics and/or sound.

Jeepers Alan, when did you learn to string a whole sentance together.

PS: he is right though

[Flyingpony]

Uni has most of its Linux software loaded from the central server ... it's slower than when installed on your desk but rolling out updates means only updating one location, unless it's an OS update.

Work has switched from internal POP3 to remote hosted Exchange Server. Email is much much slower now (does this whole sync thing), Outlook is slower when switching between mail & calender sections & even between email messages/folders. There are also periodic outages, especially when the Telco goes down or our Firewall goes on the blink. Remote Web Access ability to the email is now limited to having to remember that companies unnecessary complex URL instead of some general service like 'web to mail'. Also web access has a limited number of concurrent users allowed.

Some of my work software is run over a terminal server. You then have problems with having programs interact between your desktop and TS i.e. links on emails. The TS also can't access hardware (unless the Admin dude disabled it) such as Floppy and USB. However, workstation memory load is only that of the TS software.

[RantyDave]

A person on our board has recommended that we move from running our own network with software as normal to one where the software is resident with someone like a telco or ISP and we access our software over the net instead of from our server.
Depends what the software is. If it's something that's supposed to run on a server - a web server, email server (incl exchange) somthing like that - then it may make sense to outsource it. Particularly if it's a commonly deployed piece of kit. If the idea is to run a Citrix or Terminal Services (whatever it's called these days) server remotely, run screaming to the hills. I've seen it done once (a complete nightmare) and rejected half a dozen times. The basic reasons are:


If the Internet goes down, at all, all your office computers shit themselves.
If the server shits itself the whole lot goes down. Given that it's a Microsoft box this is obviously a problem.
Performance is dire.
Hardware costs are astronomical. The server has to be colossal and you still need a PC on each desk.
Software costs are astronomical.
People get pissed off with it and start keeping files on their local machines anyway - now you have TWO problems :)


So, Web Servers and other things that need a permanent connection are probably better off hosted. General IT infrastructure is better off in house.

Dave