On-premises software is located and operated within a user’s data center. As such, it uses the user’s computing hardware rather than that of a cloud provider. Also known as “shrinkwrap,” on-premises programs are among the most used enterprise and consumer applications that require licenses per server or computer. Vendors are no longer responsible for their security and overall management but do provide after-sales technical support.
Users have varying requirements and resources. Here are some factors they can consider.
Cost
Advantage
Lower long-term costs: Annual maintenance costs and one-time license fees are lower compared to paying recurring expenses associated with cloud software.
Disadvantage
Requires substantial capital investment for hardware and infrastructure: On-premises software users must deal with ongoing costs related to space, server, and other equipment, along with power consumption.
Control and management
Advantage
Full user control: An on-premises environment allows users complete control and management of assets. That is particularly useful for those who work in highly regulated industries where privacy is a top concern.
Disadvantage
Requires dedicated tech support: Since users have full control and management of all assets, the organization needs a dedicated IT support team.
Security
Advantage
Allows implementation of own security policies and procedures: Industries that deal with sensitive information often prefer to use on-premises software because this gives them more control over security. It allows them to contain information within their walls.
Disadvantage
Requires dedicated tech support: Again, an internal IT support team is needed so users can implement their self-devised security policies.
User access
Advantage
No need for Internet connection: On-premises software can be accessed even without an Internet connection. That makes it useful for areas where there is no reliable Internet connection. Multiple users can also access the system simultaneously without affecting the speed.
Disadvantage Cannot be accessed while on the go: On-premises systems must be accessed within the vicinity of the user’s office or field. Remote access may be complicated to set up.
Although the importance of cloud computing is steadily growing, on-premises is still the better choice in many cases for companies and organizations. In sectors like finance or healthcare, companies are subject to particularly strict data protection requirements. With on-premises, sensitive data can be protected more effectively from unauthorized third-party access since the company itself manages the data and internal processes. The company defines who gains access to which data.
The Azure platform aims to help businesses manage challenges and meet their organizational goals. It offers tools that support all industries — including e-commerce, finance and a variety of Fortune 500 companies — and is compatible with open-source technologies. This provides users with the flexibility to use their preferred tools and technologies. Seventy-three percent of organizations have at least one application, or chunk of their infrastructure, in the cloud already, according to a recent report. A further 17% plan to make a move toward the cloud within the next year. Average spend on cloud computing is also increasing, rising from $1.62m per business in 2016 to $2.2m today. And it is not just enterprises who are shelling out to ensure their business is at the forefront of this digital shift; SMBs now typically invest around $889,000 in cloud tech, up 210% on the average 2016 budget. It might seem like everyone is doing it, but cloud computing is still new phenomenon, and there is still a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation about the cloud. But worry not, we are going back to basics to offer straightforward answers to the questions you were too afraid to ask with our Microsoft technology FAQ series.
What is Microsoft Azure? Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service offered by Microsoft. There are over 600 services that fall under the Azure umbrella, but broadly speaking, it is a web-based platform on which applications and services can be built, tested, managed, and deployed. A wide range of Microsoft’s software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) products are hosted on Azure. Azure offers three core areas of functionality: Virtual Machines, cloud services, and app services.
What is Microsoft Azure used for? There are hundreds of services available through Azure; practically any cloud computing product that a business could need can be found on the platform. In terms of scope, Azure covers more regions than any other cloud provider and is the only consistent hybrid cloud.
Who uses Microsoft Azure? Due to its accessible nature and massive scalability, Azure can be and is used by companies of every size and circumstance, from garage startups to Fortune 500 companies; in fact, 90% the Fortune 500 trust run processes on the Microsoft cloud. In addition to the vast choice of innovative, and business-critical services, there are many other benefits to Azure which make it appealing to organizations across the board. Azure is flexible; users can add new services, up their storage capabilities, and create new applications as they go, without having to worry about whether they have the infrastructure to support any changes. As Azure largely eliminates the need for costly hardware like servers, routers, and load balancers—plus the in-house IT manpower to maintain them—it can save companies a lot of money. Many Azure services operate on an on-demand, pay-as-you-go, and users can get a real-time view of how much they are spending through their admin portal, making budgeting IT spend much easier and more precise. The reliability offered by Microsoft’s cloud services is also a bonus for businesses. Azure’s 99.99% uptime guarantee, huge range of disaster recovery plans, and thorough backup systems mean organizations, their processes, and their data, are in safe hands.
Where is Azure data held? Azure runs on data centers around the world, enabling the service to cover more regions than any other cloud provider; Microsoft’s datacenters contain enough fiber cabling to reach the moon and back three times over. Azure currently operates 54 regions—a set of locally-based datacenters dedicated to a particular geographic location—in 140 countries; customers can select the region that’s right for them, allowing users around the world to preserve data residency, maintain compliance and take advantage of a wide range of resiliency options. Microsoft has invested over $15bn in infrastructure since opening its first data center in 1989 and continues to add new regions to its Azure coverage all the time, expanding the services available to each location. However currently, not all Azure services are available in every region.
Consequently, Microsoft Azure’s capabilities have become increasingly innovative and open, with improved support for Linux and open-source application stacks. Furthermore, many customers that are pursuing a multi-cloud strategy will use Azure for some of their workloads, and Microsoft’s on-premises Azure Stack software may potentially attract customers seeking hybrid solutions.
Technological change is rapidly changing people’s present and future perspectives. It is an inevitable alteration that will greatly affect all economic sectors such as education. It is with the help of the COVID-19 pandemic that industries were forcefully ordered to adapt to the current situation. As for the education sector, the University of the Visayas in particular, they were quick to adapt and provide a virtual learning environment for their students with the help of Mindweb eSolutions in the form of Teach Tech, Mindweb’s subsidiary.
Teach Tech provides the learning management system of the University of the Visayas with the use of the MOODLE platform. MOODLE stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, which was designed to provide educators, administrators, and learners with an open, robust, secure, and free platform to create and deliver personalized learning environments. MOODLE is a user-friendly learning management system that supports learning and training needs for a wide range of institutions and organizations across the globe. It helps to organize eLearning contents in one location and provides unlimited access to it. This provides convenience for both the instructors and the students. While MOODLE LMS helps in reducing the risk of losing important eLearning data, it is also vital to the user’s productivity and skills development since they have unlimited access on-the-go, anytime, anywhere, using mobile devices. They need not have to wait for the scheduled class or training sessions to acquire new knowledge or do some work-related tasks in advance. With MOODLE LMS, instructors can easily track learners’ progress and performance. It helps them in ensuring that students are meeting their performance milestones and assess whether or not students need supplemental resources to improve their performance or learning behaviors. MOODLE LMS also reduces learning and development costs. It helps in eliminating costs that would be incurred in a classroom set-up such as instructor’s allowance and printing of eLearning materials or modules. Since MOODLE LMS is online, instructors can easily integrate social learning experiences by creating truly collaborative group activities. Activities that the students will benefit more from doing the activity as a group than doing it alone. With all the benefits and advantages of the MOODLE Learning Management System mentioned above, it is guaranteed that it will address all the challenges encountered in a virtual learning environment and that the University of the Visayas is focused on delivering a well-rounded, relevant, and quality education even during the current situation brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The economic downturn, inconvenience, and restrictions brought by the COVID-19 pandemic was a shot in the gut to the world’s economies. One of its most affected sectors was education, which forced educational institutions to quickly adapt and innovate on how they will cater a non-face-to-face school set-up and provide a virtual learning environment to its students that are both convenient and efficient to its students and instructors.
According to the figures of the Department of Education (DepEd), enrollment in kindergarten up to senior high school for the school year 2020-2021 dropped more than 25 percent from a year ago. With these expectations, one of the obvious ways to mitigate further effect is to provide a medium for students to be able to enroll online. The University of the Visayas tapped Mindweb eSolutions to create and handle its virtual learning environment and included in the package is the online enrollment system.
Mindweb’s Online Enrollment System is a web application that can be used anytime and anywhere and can be accessed through any web browser. It is designed to be mobile responsive and user friendly, which makes it easy to navigate. It can easily process online enrollments for both freshmen and non-freshman students and let them plot their subject schedule with convenience. Enrollees can easily attach a softcopy of their enrollment requirements. Students can view the history of their enrollment and also can check their study load through the web application. Users of the web application can easily be monitored.
With this Online Enrollment System, learners can be admitted to the university in single browsing of this web application. It helps in mitigating the actual interaction of learners in school; hence, optimum health safety plus convenience are achieved.
Without a doubt, technology has been improving the convenience, accessibility, and quality of education. It plays a crucial role in the current and future ways of education, providing students the tools and resources that will encourage them to thrive. With Office 365 Education for Students, all of these advantages that technology brings can be harnessed in a cost-efficient way. That is why Mindweb eSolutions is adding up the management and administration of your Office 365 on their arsenal of services offered. Mindweb eSolutions is a certified Microsoft partner capable of handling any of your Office 365 needs.
Office 365 Education for Students is an Office 365 plan that is available for free to students who attend academic institutions that have purchased Office for faculty and staff. This plan allows students to install Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, and Access up to 5 PCs or Macs and Office apps on other mobile devices including Windows tablets and iPads. The plan also includes 1TB of OneDrive storage, managed by the schools. Students can use the plan until they graduate or when they are no longer enrolled at a qualified school.
With Office 365, students can easily create, share, and even collaborate in real-time with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote – without losing the formatting of the documents. With its collaborative tools, students can do group projects with more structure and instructors can easily guide, review, and participate by adding comments and notes to group works for feedback. It also saves instructors time with the use of Teams application for planning, giving assignments, communication, and more. Office 365 has the flexibility to cater to different teaching approaches used by different institutions. It supports modern teaching and learning strategies that encourage a growth mindset in students, emphasizing future-ready skills to help them succeed in ever-changing jobs and jobs that have not been yet invented. Office 365 offers easy and anytime access to all its resources to students. With an internet connection, students and teachers can connect to their files with ease. Students can do their school work anywhere they like and on any device they so choose. They can also easily make changes and updates on their documents, like if they want to add ideas in their essays or alter some slides in their PowerPoint file. Online Schooling is the new normal that we need to embrace. It may have its pros and cons, but we can maximize the pros and minimize the cons of using technology, using Office 365.
