Combining SharePoint Online, SharePoint On-Premise as a Hybrid in the Cloud

By David Roe (@druadh20) Nov 14, 2011

Running in tandem with the release of SharePoint 2010, there are two other elements that, along with SharePoint, point to a more efficient and agile future for management of content. Those two elements are the proliferation of cloud computing possibilities and, combining these two other elements, the development of hybrid online/on premise computing environments.

SharePoint deployments are hitting up to 70%, according to the State of the ECM Industry report from AIIM earlier, while an October report — also from AIIM — suggested that half of companies will be using it as their principal enterprise CMS.

Why Cloud Computing

There are many reasons why companies are looking at cloud deployments, or some kind of combined cloud deployments. Last week, we noted that there were at least five business reasons why enterprises are heading to the cloud. These include:

Cost reductions
Operational efficiencies
Security
Productivity
Scalability

Cloud computing is defined by Gartner as:

…a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to external customers using Internet technologies… cloud computing applications must be service-based, scalable and elastic, shared, metered by use, and utilizing Internet technologies.”

The immediate draw to cloud computing is clear — total cost of ownership is vastly reduced, as there is no need for capital expenses for physical servers and other hardware.

Where large companies have not shown the inclination to move their applications to the cloud, other companies have shown themselves willing to do so.

In the case of Microsoft Exchange, for example, Rackspace and Fpweb. Net started offering hosted versions of it when Microsoft didn’t show itself willing to do so immediately. With SharePoint, the problem was the same.

Microsoft had to react, even if it did so only slowly, and started offering SharePoint Online as part of BPOS and then as a cornerstone of the Office 365 release, which went on general release last June. Microsoft now also offers its own cloud storage through Azure for Windows Server and SQL Server.

Cloud Computing Concerns

Since the release, we have seen that, while many companies are willing to embrace SharePoint Online, there are still concerns around issues such as whether it will work with legacy applications, security, agility and reliability.

We have also seen that one of the ways enterprises are overcoming this is by starting their own hybrid deployments by combining on-premise and cloud deployments.

In a recent white paper by AvePoint, which provides infrastructure management solutions for Microsoft SharePoint products, entitled Embracing the Cloud: Strategies for Hybrid Microsoft SharePoint Deployments, the company takes a look at some of the issues around these kinds of deployments.

Why SharePoint Online?

SharePoint was originally a collaboration application, if its use has changed somewhat by now. It offers workers across an enterprise the possibility of sharing information around a centralized document repository