Are you ready to upgrade your current fax solution to not just a new but a better way to send, receive and manage faxes? Do you have workflows that are fax-dependent and realize it’s time to make those workflows as efficient and cost-effective as possible?
Whether you are eliminating fax machines (finally!) or upgrading to an enterprise fax solution, understanding your deployment options is an important step. Many organizations are beginning to choose IT solutions based on preferred method of deployment. Some organizations want all IT systems to reside in-house or “on-premises.” Others want to leverage the cloud as much as possible to outsource all (or as many as possible) IT activities. An increasingly popular alternative is hybrid solutions, in which part of a software system resides on-premises, but some components are outsourced for efficiency.
Enterprise fax solutions are available as on-premises, cloud and hybrid deployment options. But which one is best for your organization? Below are some of the decision factors and business needs that drive each of the deployment models:
On-Premises Fax Servers: A fax server is deployed in-house and typically requires the most IT management and resources. Strengths of on-premises deployments include: you completely own and control the environment, data storage and location of the data; typically highly configurable and customizable with strong integration options; includes options for high availability and disaster recovery. On-premises fax server solutions are best when:
- You have complex integration or security requirements
- You seek to avoid fax volume/user charges
- You want to leverage economies of scale
- You require full control over data storage & ownership
- You wish to harness your own IT bench strength
- You are not looking to outsource
Cloud Fax Services: Cloud fax services are part of a pure service deployment model, with no fax software, hardware or telephony required to reside at your site. Faxes are sent and received via email. Strengths of cloud deployments include: fastest and easiest deployment, limited resources required, pay only for what you use, Web Services APIs typically available for integrations, unlimited and instantly scalable capacity, no busy signals, built-in redundancy and automatic failover for faxing. Cloud-based fax solutions are best when:
- You need to deploy rapidly
- You seek fast and flexible scalability
- You want multi-site redundancy for failover and disaster recovery
- You need or want to outsource fax telephony
- You have little or over-subscribed IT bench strength
- You are looking for uptime and telephony SLAs
- You have a corporate mandate to outsource or “move to the cloud”
Hybrid Fax Solutions: In hybrid fax deployments, the fax server software resides at your site (on-premises) and fax transmission is provided as a service (in the cloud). The key strength of hybrid solutions is that the service portion typically includes eliminating the connection of the fax server to the telephone network, often the most complex and confusing part of deploying fax solutions, which in turn removes this responsibility from your IT and telecommunications staff. Other strengths include: all the benefits of an on-premises fax server (ownership, data storage and location, integration capabilities, etc) with the ability to leverage the strength of cloud faxing (flexibility, scalability, no busy signals, built-in disaster recovery and automatic failover for fax transmissions). Hybrid fax solutions are best when:
- You have complex integration or security requirements
- You require full control over data storage and ownership
- You seek fast and flexible scalability
- You need or want to outsource fax telephony
- You are looking for telephony SLAs
- You outsource as it makes sense
Still not sure which fax solution deployment model is best for you? OpenText can help.With the best on-premises, cloud and hybrid options in the industry, OpenText has a solution for you. Learn more.
