publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/550988
ILTA WHITE PAPER: JULY 2015 WWW.ILTANET.ORG 56 ON-PREMISES OR SaaS? IT DEPENDS ON YOUR NEEDS What can we conclude? Both on-premises and SaaS are valid options for document management, and firms should evaluate all aspects when looking into making this investment rather than being lured into SaaS because the initial costs are appealing. It comes down to what will work for your firm in terms of needs, assessment and planning. What is good today may not be ideal tomorrow and could ultimately force rethinking a strategy that should have been considered in the first place. The answers to these questions should be part of your considerations. INVESTMENT PRIORITIES How you choose to allocate your budget relates not only to document management, but to every kind of application. The SaaS approach is better for firms trying to save on upfront capital investment; but, as the example above shows, it might be more costly in the long run. Many firms have developed IT competency over time and understand that deploying software internally helps the firm leverage those resources better. As the technology continues to evolve, firms will be able to leverage integrations between SaaS and on-premises more easily. SECURITY A best practice in both on-premises and SaaS deployments is to save documents in a centralized repository, applying all available security measures. This can be an issue for the firm with an on-premises solution. The SaaS hosting company likely has more resources to spend on security; it is easy to apply several security policies to the repository. Compliance issues also need to be addressed: where the data are stored and whether you will be in compliance with local regulations if the data are located outside the geographical boundaries of the client location. A related issue is disaster recovery. By definition, having data backed up offsite increases your chances of recovering from data loss. With on- premises platforms, regular back-ups must be done, and a recovery strategy will need to be put in place. There are also very obvious questions that need asking: • How easy will it be to get documents out of the system you choose? • What happens if you wish to change systems? • Will you be able to move your data from an old system to a new one? • Are your data stored in native or proprietary format?