Five years from now, will a 200-person company need any servers on site?
Last week I was asked an intriguing question: given the trend towards cloud-based services and applications, is it possible that a 200-person company will soon be able to have no servers onsite? If not, what will the future threshold be?
Last week I was asked an intriguing question: given the trend towards cloud-based services and applications, is it possible that a 200-person company will soon be able to have no servers onsite? If not, what will the future threshold be?
Even in a cloud-centric world of the future, most people would probably agree that large enterprises will never become 100% cloud-based. In other words, large enterprises will probably always have internal datacenters and servers. Most people probably also agree that even today small companies (say, five people) don't need to own any servers—they can get along fine with hosted email and file syncing and online accounting, etc.
So as IT becomes more service-oriented, the point as which a company requires onsite servers (in terms of users) will go up. Today it might be five users. Next year it's ten. Then twenty. So how far will that go? When will we get to the point when no company (regardless of size) needs onsite servers?
And if so, what technologies will drive the servers and apps to the cloud? Or what will keep them onsite?
It's already possible. I worked for a company that provided a completely hosted IT infrastructure delivering applications via Citrix and managing resources via a custom-developed web portal. Literally everything is hosted (desktop applications, databases, mail, network storage, etc.) and maintained by the company, including managing disaster recovery. For all of their clients, only a select few needed to have servers remain on site and that was primarily due to manufacturing needs where there are physical serial connections required to run the equipment and companies that were heavy into graphic design / CAD applications. Citrix and the associated network requirements are simply to heavy to easily transition those factors over to the cloud (though, even that is changing).
Things that helped with pushing companies towards this model are:
- multiple office locations and the concurrency issues from having separate file stores
- a desire to focus and have existing IT staff work on projects that are more innovative / benefit the company moving forward than doing day-to-day maintenance
- staff comfortable working entirely online (this also easily enables home offices)
- no significant capital expenditures every 3-4 years for server / desktop refreshes.
I would say that not only is it possible, it's inevitable for companies above 25 employees. The cost benefits far outweigh keeping things as is. The economies of scale also really start to kick in for the MSPs providing the services allowing for a higher level of service for a cheaper price for those companies that make the transition.
My 2 bits anyway.
Randall