Cloud or on-prem? A decision framework for institutions.

The seven questions to ask before choosing a deployment model — connectivity, sovereignty, cost, control, and the trade-offs nobody mentions.

Question 1: What's Your Internet Reliability?

If connectivity drops frequently, on-premise ensures system availability during outages.

Question 2: Do You Have IT Staff?

Cloud reduces maintenance burden. On-prem requires dedicated IT personnel.

Question 3: What's Your Budget Cycle?

Cloud is OpEx (monthly). On-prem is CapEx (upfront). Match deployment to your budget structure.

Question 4: How Sensitive is Your Data?

Student health records, financial data — some institutions require on-premise storage for compliance.

Question 5: What's Your Growth Trajectory?

Rapid growth favors cloud (easy scaling). Stable size favors on-prem (lower long-term cost).

Question 6: What's Your Disaster Recovery Plan?

Cloud includes automatic backups. On-prem requires manual backup infrastructure.

Question 7: What Control Do You Need?

On-prem gives full control. Cloud delegates security and maintenance to provider.

Our Recommendation

Start cloud, migrate to hybrid. Get running fast, optimize costs over time.

Need deployment advice? We support both models and can help you choose.