Server in the office
or in the cloud

Two different things that go by the same name. The first is subscribing to ready-made services: email, shared files and office tools in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, the management software in the version its vendor hosts, backups in a backup service. You don't run any server; you pay per user per month. The second is renting a virtual machine in a data centre and installing on it the same things you had in the cupboard: Windows Server, the database, the software. It's still a server someone has to run, it's just somewhere else and paid for monthly. When someone sells you the cloud, ask which of the two: the first removes administration work; the second moves it elsewhere.

In the first year almost always, because there's nothing to buy. From the third year on, it depends. An office server is one large outlay, plus the licence, the UPS, maintenance and backups, and it lasts five or six years. The cloud is a monthly fee per user or per machine that never ends and goes up when you add people, storage or services. For a small business that only needs email and files, the cloud usually comes out better, because your own server would be almost empty. For one with software that requires a server and many users, a properly sized server of your own usually pays for itself. The honest approach is to cost both over five years, including for your own server the time of whoever runs it, rather than going by the first month's fee.

First ask the software vendor whether they have a version they host themselves or whether it supports being installed on a virtual machine in the cloud. Many management, workshop, clinic or accountancy packages now offer both options, and some are phasing out the on-premises server version. If only the local version exists, then yes: that software decides for you, and the sensible thing is to keep a server in the office for it and move everything else to the cloud, which is the hybrid option. What isn't advisable is moving software designed for a local network onto a cloud virtual machine without testing it first: some programs work fine and others become unusable because of latency, and you find out with the users already on it.

With everything in the cloud, the office stops working: no email, no files, no software. That's why the cloud needs a reliable connection and, in practice, a second backup line by a different route, which we explain in backup internet for a business. With the server in the office, everything inside keeps working without internet: the software, the files and printing; you only lose email and anything external. It's the strongest argument for a local server in places with a poor connection, and it stops being one as soon as good fibre with a backup line arrives. It works the other way too: with the server in the office, if the power goes, everything stops, which is why it has a UPS.

It makes its own backups, so its service doesn't go down. It doesn't make yours. If someone deletes a shared folder, a disgruntled employee empties their mailbox on the way out or ransomware encrypts the synced files, the provider recovers whatever its recycle bin allows, which is usually a short window, and nothing more. Microsoft and Google say so in writing: responsibility for the data lies with the customer. That's why a cloud environment needs a separate backup, in another service or on a NAS in the office, just as a local server needs an off-site copy. The 3-2-1 backup rule applies to both.

A named person, in both cases. An office server needs updates, tested backups, a UPS with orderly shutdown, disk monitoring and someone who finds out when something fails; without that, the day comes when it won't boot and there's no backup. A cloud environment needs less, but not nothing: adding and removing users, setting up two-factor authentication, reviewing who has access to what, monitoring the external backup and the accounts of people who've left. If nobody in the company can do that, what you need is a maintenance contract with an assigned technician, whichever option you choose. What doesn't work is a server, in the office or in the cloud, that nobody looks after.