Cloud Collaboration vs. On-Premise Systems

Cloud vs On-Premises – What’s the Difference?

Local equipment means that the equipment is located in your office. Your agency owns the server, maintains it, patches it, and is on the hook if it goes down. The cloud means that the infrastructure lives on someone else’s servers, Microsoft, Google, your AMS provider — and you access it over the Internet while they’re doing maintenance.

Teams and Slack are built in the cloud, so they work the same whether you’re in the office or at the kitchen table. The more important version of this question is whether your AMS is hosted in the cloud (such as newer Vertafore/Applied deployments or AMS360) or still running on an on-premises server, because that decision determines what happens to your agency’s data the day your building loses power.

A real example

Agency on local server loses power during storm and loses access to client files during upgrade week. A cloud-based AMS agency logs in from a laptop at home and never misses a single moment. Same storm, completely different Monday.

Possible visuals

• Split screen: server rack labeled “on-premises” next to a cloud icon labeled “cloud hosting” with four points of comparison – cost, access, risk, service
• A Teams or Slack stream shows a document being shared and responded to in real time
• The team operates from three different locationsall entered into one common system

Hosting your AMS in the cloud isn’t a technical detail – it’s a business continuity decision. If your office loses power, does your agency shut down?