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There are two product use models offered by software developers to business. They are clouds and On-Premise. It is believed that clouds are simpler and cheaper, therefore preferred by small companies, while On-Premise or Enterprise is more suitable for large governmental organizations and banks. But is it true? Let us try to figure it out.

First of all, we need to clarify general terminology:

  1. A Cloud or SaaS (Software as a Service) is software provided by subscription, accessed via the Internet, and worked with in a browser, desktop application, or mobile application. In other words, it is located in a cloud and fully supported by the service provider.
  1. Enterprise, On-Premise or In-House is deployed using company’s own capacity. In this case, the service control is transferred to the company which has purchased the software. Relatively speaking, you take the same cloud and place it inside your infrastructure.

In order to assess the advantages of SaaS and On-Premise, it is required to understand the difference between capabilities and levels of access to infrastructure. Both models are similar to housing purchase or rent. Let us use this example to consider ownership aspects and responsibility areas.

 

 

Your own apartment

(On-Premise)

Rental housing

(SaaS)

Home improvement

+

-

(or if approved)

Pets

+

-

(or if approved)

Residents

Anybody

Only those indicated in the contract

New furniture

+

If approved

May be rented out

+

-

Monthly payments

Utilities

Rent + utilities

Issues of housing and public utilities

To be addressed by yourself

To be addressed by the owner

Both options certainly include a place to live. But the question is whether it is your apartment where you can do whatever you want, or a rental dwelling with rules and restrictions monitored by its owner. The nature of In-House and clouds is roughly the same. You can own a system and modify it freely, or you can use rented software controlled by its provider.

How Does Chat2Desk Enterprise Work?

At an In-House chat center, the service works as follows: customers’ messages are firstly delivered to messengers’ servers and then to company’s servers. A mediator, i.e. the organization which grants access to Chat2Desk, is excluded. It is about Internet providers, DNS servers, and other nodes located on the data way in any case.

The philosophy of the two solutions is shown in diagrams below.

The Cloud:

Enterprise:

Do You Need Enterprise?

It is believed that On-Premise is selected by huge corporations and governmental organizations alone. However, this type of connection is far more often preferred by private companies with large incoming and outgoing message traffics.  These are banks, telecommunications companies, mobile operators, insurance companies, logistics companies, transport companies, etc., i.e. any entity liable for their customers’ data and covered by General Data Protection Regulation. Therefore, the main advantage of On-Premise is information security. SaaS certainly ensures information security as well but it will be discussed below.

The next advantage is fast and stable operation. Large customer message traffics involve large loads on servers. In order to provide a customer service of high quality, it is required to maintain high performance. In-House facilitates achieving these objectives.

Let us describe how it works.

On-Premise Advantages

1. Data Security

Any company cares about the information it stores whether it be personal data of customers or proprietary confidential information. Therefore, in order to comply with the legislation and to protect information against disclosure, special attention is paid to digital security.

1.1 Personal Data

When communicating with its customers, a company often needs their phone numbers, bank card details, or passport data, i.e. confidential information forbidden to be transferred to third parties. On-Premise allows the company to store user data on its servers preventing them from leaking. By using its own capacity, the company itself can set up data stream encryption, strengthen anonymization, and manage its security.

1.2 Company’s Data

The same is applicable to company’s proprietary information. Documentation, accounting reports, databases, and turnover information remain on company’s own servers. In other words, In-House serves as a local network accessible within the company only.

1.3 Liability

In accordance with GDPR, it is forbidden to disclose personal data to third parties or to distribute personal data without the users’ consent. Violation of this law entails civil, administrative, and criminal liability. A personal data operator which has not prevented information leak is at risk of paying a fine, losing its license for data processing, or losing its equipment and terminating its activities.

1.4 Data Encryption

Chat2Desk has a system of rights and security which grants data access to authorized users only. Data are encrypted and logged. Even if information is leaked, it cannot be decrypted by anything except for computers similar to those in the Pentagon. Unlike the cloud solution, On-Premise excludes a third party between the customer and the company thus increasing personal data security. If you are a personal data operator, an In-House chat center will help you store information in compliance with the legislation. In this regard, the On-Premise owner takes responsibility and introduces a monitoring and data protecting system by itself.

2. Speed and Stability

Permanent access to a cloud service is maintained by the Internet providers of the service owners. It is obvious that companies which provide their servers and cloud engage several Internet providers to ensure uninterrupted operation. But faults beyond your control are possible even under such conditions.

With On-Premise, you connect your own providers and start to monitor Internet work. Therefore, any issues should be settled by your own efforts. If you use Chat2Desk for internal communications (communication between departments or training), neither speed, nor faults are threats to you. Messages and documents are safely transferred in one local network.

Let us use an example. The only way a conditional Cyprus contacts with the outside world is via a satellite. Therefore, if your office is located on an island, you will encounter a low speed of message delivery and system faults because the cloud servers of Chat2Desk are located in Russia and in Continental Europe. In-House eliminates this problem. The service will operate independently and communication will be smooth within the company.

3. Customization and Improvements

Clouds are limited in terms of service customization. Every software provider has its own roadmap with updates and improvements planned. If your proposal fits into the general software development plan, you are lucky and it will be implemented one day. But if it is not provided for by the roadmap, you will have to have long negotiations or even make an additional payment to get the service customized.

Software you purchase comes under your control along with the possibility to make any improvements. Thanks to an open API, your developers can modify the platform themselves at any time. It will be easily integrated with your own software not provided for by the basic version, i.e. CRM systems, internal clouds, security systems, and artificial intelligence, as well as available chat bots.

In addition to functional improvements, you can change the interface appearance by, for example, adding the company’s logo. You can also customize the website widget. Create your own design and specify your name instead of Chat2Desk.

4. Performance

When using SaaS, both parties (the company and its customers) should connect to a cloud and text to each other there. This cloud has large but limited resources which are distributed between all customers as per internal algorithms. Therefore, in case of a sudden high load, temporary messaging faults and delays are possible. The speed will not recover until the service owners increase the capacity.

A company which has deployed In-House can itself adjust the server capacity and throw some wood if required. Suppose you are launching a promotion and waiting for a big customer influx. You will be able to forecast a load on the servers and take timely measures.

What Do You Need for Connection?

Specifications depend on your tasks and are determined individually. The main criteria are the number of messages per day, the number of operators, and the number of messengers connected.

In order to deploy In-House, you need

  1. Infrastructure
  • it can be already available;
  • you purchase equipment by yourself;
  • Chat2Desk takes responsibility for all procurement and installation works.
  1. Developers. Theoretically, both parties should provide engineers to deploy the system. But if you do not have them in your staff, our developers will do everything themselves.
  2. Software. It does not matter much because we use unified software.
  3. Virtual servers which allow for infrastructure scaling depending on the load.

 Chat2Desk offers three deployment options:

  1. Minimum. For a moderate number of requests per day (1,000 to 2,000). This option is also suitable for the first connection to determine a load.
  2. Standard. For a higher performance and basic security level.
  3. Maximum. For large corporate networks where company’s data are stored in a protected and restricted local network.

Comparing SaaS and Enterprise

In order to make a conclusion, let us compare the two solutions in a table.

 

 

SaaS

Enterprise

Philosophy

Working in a cloud on a general server

The system is fully deployed on customer’s servers without external access

Specifications

Any providers, servers, and capacities are at the discretion of Chat2Desk

Everything is in the customer’s infrastructure

White label

Under the name Chat2Desk

Under the name of the customer or Chat2Desk

Improvements and integrations

Possible if compliant with the roadmap of Chat2Desk. Otherwise, additional payment is required.

Unlimited if improvements are introduced by the customer itself.

Security

Ensured by the provider

Ensured by the customer

Speed and performance

Adjusted by the provider

Limited by the customer only

Cost

The monthly fee is from RUR 1,000 depending on the options selected

The lump sum is from RUR 850,000 depending on order parameters.

Prices and Savings

The cloud cost is formed by the number of messengers connected, the number of additional operators, and the number of additional functions. Payments shall be made monthly or on a quarterly / annual basis subject to discount in the latter case. When purchasing In-House, you make a one-time payment for a complete package. Let us calculate how much an online service which makes loans to individuals pays us.

 

Option

SaaS

Enterprise

WhatsApp (5 accounts)

225 $/mo

$ 9,000

Viber (2 accounts)

40 $/mo

$ 3,600

VK

20 $/mo

$ 1,800

Telegram

20 $/mo

$ 3,600

Instagram* Direct

45 $/mo

$ 1,800

Extended statistics

20 $/mo

included in the price

Self-service menu

20 $/mo

included in the price

Quality control

20 $/mo

included in the price

Write First option

30 $/mo

included in the price

Sales funnels

45 $/mo

included in the price

Total:

485 $/mo

 $ 19,800

 

It is clear that the cloud seems cheaper in the beginning but you should pay for it monthly. In the long term, you will pay approximately $29,000 within five years. In-House is CapEx. You purchase a license and buy out the service. We understand that the initial expenses for software are high but these funds will be recouped in the long term.

We have prepared a graph to show how expenses for a chat center are distributed in time. We know that In-House is subject to a lump sum payment but we have divided the payments into months within five years for clarity.

Conclusion

On-Premise is a package solution and it will cost much higher than SaaS. You create a project to introduce new infrastructure. This includes collaboration of engineers provided by both parties and equipment procurement. But your software becomes advantageous through it. On top of that, a chat center will reduce expenses for other business processes.

Determine parameters which are important to you, and make the right decision. Write to Chat2Desk via any preferable messenger in the right bottom corner of the screen to make it easier to decide. We will find a solution for you.

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