Advantages of Choosing Dynamics CRM Online
Choosing one of the available hosting models for Dynamics CRM is now not only a matter of preference. The decision can be driven by multiple factors.
During the last few years, there has been a huge push for the cloud. Microsoft has been very focused on enhancing their Online offering, and has continued to push more functionality and more resources in supporting the cloud model. As such, Dynamics CRM Online has become a force to reckon with. It is hosted on a very modern and high performing infrastructure. Microsoft has pushed literally billions of dollars into new data centers and infrastructure. This allows new customers to forego the necessary expenses on infrastructure associated with an on-premise deployment.
Along with investments on infrastructure, the Service Level Agreement (SLA) offered by Dynamics CRM Online is financially backed by Microsoft. Depending on the service selected, the uptime is guaranteed and backed financially. Application and infrastructure are automatically handled by Microsoft so you don't have to. This translates into much lower upfront costs, as well as reduced costs around ongoing maintenance and upgrades.
The Dynamics CRM Online offering is also compliant with various regulatory requirements, and is backed and verified through various third-party tests. Various rules, regulations, and policies in various locales are validated and certified by various organizations. Some of the various compliance policies evaluated include but are not limited to:
- Data Privacy and Confidentiality Policies
- Data Classification
- Information Security
- Privacy
- Data Stewardship
- Secure Infrastructure
- Identity and Access Control
All these compliance requirements are in conformance with regulations stipulated by the International Standard Organization and other international and local standards. Independent auditors validate standards compliance rules. Microsoft is ISO 27001 certified.
The Microsoft Trust Center website located at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/trustcenter/CloudServices/Dynamics provides additional information on compliance, responsibilities, and warranties.
Further to the aforementioned benefits, choosing cloud over a standard on-premise deployment offers other advantages around scalability, faster time to market, and higher value proposition.
In addition to the standard benefits of an online deployment, one other great advantage is the ability to spin-up a 30-day trial instance of Dynamics CRM Online and convert it to a paid instance only when ready to go to production. This allows customizers and companies to get started and customize their solution in a free environment, with no additional costs attached. The 30-day trial instance gives us a 25-license instance, which allows us to not only customize the organization, but also test various roles and restrictions.