2020-05-12

Dynamics 365: On Premise, Online, Hosted?

If you have made the decision to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365: Congratulations! This is the base for everything to come and the next decision already knocks on your door. Which kind of deployment should you choose?

Your Options
You have3 options to decide upon – each with their own benefits and perhaps disadvantages. You need to know your requirements and your infrastructure quite well to decide upon that. I’ll leave out hybrid approaches as – from my experience – they are only for very few companies.
First of all, here are your options
- Online
- On Premise
- Hosted by Partner

So, let’s go through them quickly:

Dynamics 365 Online
This is the approach Microsoft wants you to follow. Full Cloud. And I personally like that approach although I understand, that there are cases, where the other options might be better.

One of the greatest benefit of a cloud deployment is that besides the subscription cost no further investment into your hardware, network or software has to be taken into account. Access from anywhere at any time from any device is guaranteed and takes a lot of headache from you.

Choosing Dynamics 365 online deployment gets you and your sales crew up and running in just a day or so. You might even want to create a trial first to use the CRM for a month or two and make some basic customizations.

Another big advantage you have is scalability in any terms possible – if you hit the max. Capacity, you can just buy additional capacity with a few clicks.

Back ups and Server maintenance are done by Microsoft and need no Masters Degree to manage.

And, in the fast moving IT world you should never forget, that Microsoft offers all application upgrades within the license fee.

On Premise
The more you plan on programming additional features into your CRM, the more on Prem gets sexy. As you have nearly full control, this makes things a lot easier (full access to SQL Server, full control of back up frequency….)

In short:
- You are in full control of configurations, database and backups
- Extensive customizations can be implemented (near to unlimited)

The disadvantages? You are not on the most recent version and as soon as you implement those extensive customations, an upgrade can be really expensive. Addons like e.g. Sales Insights or Omnichannel capabilities are NOT possible with an on Premise version which essentially means you are basically left behind on the long run. And ofcourse you are in full responsibility for maintaining the system, having backups and running the servers.

Hosted by Partner
Your partner hosts the CRM System on one of their servers. It gives you all the advantages of an on premise System without the administrative responsibilities. So if you do not want the IT management burden but still need full control, this is the right option for you

Thanksfor reading and it would be great to see you on my YouTube channel or on my LinkedIn some time 