5 myths about ERP on cloud

1. Security

Myth: "It's safer to have your data on-premise than on cloud."

The security of having your own servers, or of a local hosting center, is in most cases incomparable to Microsoft Azure – which is a digital Fort Knox.

First, you automatically take advantage of Microsoft's 3,500 global cybersecurity experts. The security team works exclusively to monitor and maintain azure datacenters 24 hours a all-year. Microsoft also employs more than 200 whitehat hackers who try to compromise Azure — only to find weaknesses, close potential security holes, and always stay one step ahead of malicious hackers.

Second, Microsoft Azure has 3 redundant copies of your data at any time, one of which is stored in a separate data center in case of local natural disasters. So, here you will have the best data security, where all scenarios are thought into, without having the responsibility of choosing the right backup solution. And you don't have to be sleepless about how to re-establish data if the accident occurs.

As you can see, you don't give up control or security when you go cloud with Microsoft Azure. On the contrary. You strengthen your IT security in the process and can free up time when you – or your IT provider – no longer must take responsibility for maintaining local servers.

2. Uptime

Myth: "On-premise will always ensure higher uptime than cloud"

Have you measured the uptime of your on-premise solution over the years?You might be surprised of what your real uptime is, when you factor in all the downtime – planned and unplanned.

If you know your numbers, you can compare with cloud services in Microsoft Azure. Here, most services include a guaranteed uptime of at least 99.95 per cent written into a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for all customers. In short, this SLA means that breaches of the uptime guarantee result in a 10-25 per cent discount on the customer's subscription. This is a clear sign that Microsoft is focused in deliverin the highest reliability on cloud.

You would think that on-premise means 100 per cent uptime, as systems and data are local. The reality, however, is that neither cloud nor on-premise can guarantee you 100 per cent uptime. Cloud, on the other hand, comes very close.

If we convert the guaranteed 99.95 per cent uptime in Azure, this means that the company experiences a maximum of 5 minutes of downtime per week (on average) – and thus uptime of 6 days, 23 hours, and 55 minutes of the week.

3. Compliance

Myth: "Cloud breaks compliance on data retention"

Whether your data is on-premise or on cloud, GDPR and other industry-specific compliance regulations impose a number of requirements on processes and systems in the company.

GDPR, also known as the General Data Protection Regulation, requires, for example, that you can document how your company stores, handles and shares personal data.

These requirements usually is a challenge, but not with Microsoft Azure, which contains many global and regional certifications that help your company document the correct storage of personal data, such as:

1 - 100 1 - 100 1 - 100 1

Danish standard of the Danish FSA

Cloud Personal Data Management, ISO 27018

In total, Azure provides more than 90 compliance certifications that strengthen data security and, for many companies, help strengthen the legal documentation of compliance.

4. Stability

Myth: "There are more crashes on cloud than in solutions on-premise"

The cloud architecture of Microsoft Azure is based on the inevitable premise: all hardware will eventually fail or stop working.

That's why a wide range of measures are built into Microsoft Azure to ensure you higher reliability. For example, there is automatic fail over ,i.e. automatic server switching to a backup server, in case of unpredictable crash.

When you have your own data center, or hosting through an IT partner, you may imagine that their local data center is as good as the major cloud services. In reality, however, the fight is quite unequal.Microsoft Azure has built-in redundancy, failover, backup, and many other measures to help increase stability and security for you and your data.

Microsoft's Azure has invested many billions in monitoring and maintenance around the clock by some of the world's most skilled specialists. Add to this the fact that there's a lot more at stake for Microsoft: Customers should always be assured of the highest performance and security — there's no room for uncertainty.

5.Licences

Myth: "We lose the value of our on-premise licenses (e.g. NAV, C5 and XAL)"

Did you know that you can convert your on-premise Microsoft licenses? This means that you can exchange the value or have high discounts on cloud licenses.

If your company once purchased on-premise licenses, you will have a 40 percent discount on rent per user when upgrading to new licenses in the cloud (SaaS).

However, you might have a Microsoft Dynamics ERP solution with active subscriptions? Then you can exchange all or part of the value when you upgrade to new licenses in Dynamics 365 Business Central.