Cloud-based Printing vs Cloud-hosted Printing: What’s the difference between them?

When it comes to choosing between cloud-based printing services and cloud-hosted printing services, many businesses have a hard time distinguishing the differences between them.  

By properly understanding how each solution works and what benefits they provide can help you make the right decision that is based on your business needs. Let’s first start with the definition of cloud-based and cloud-hosted services as a whole. 

What are cloud-based services? 

Cloud-based services are designed to deploy via a remote cloud computing service over the internet, with delivery on demand. Cloud-based services are managed by a third party and provide services from hardware, network, storage, and virtual desktops.  

This type of web hosting uses multiple different servers. All the resources are distributed and delivered to multiple users simultaneously instead of accessing on-demand. 

What are cloud-hosted services?

Cloud-hosted services are technology services using infrastructure located outside the recipient’s physical location which can be hosted on the cloud. 

The infrastructure is located at a cloud vendor’s data center and is accessible for customers through a direct network connection, such as a virtual private network (VPN), remote desktop, etc.  

Comparing to the traditional hosted services, cloud-hosted solutions are more cost-effectively as IT departments don’t need to invest in in-house server hardware and companies can also benefit from the pay-per-use payment.   

The key differences between cloud-based and cloud-hosted services

Although cloud-based and cloud-hosted services sound similar, they are very different in terms of how they are used.  

In short, the difference between cloud-based and cloud-hosted services is the location of the servers running the service. 

Cloud-hosted service is the on-premises version of the software hosted in the cloud and only provides services for one customer. In contrast, cloud-based services are multi-tenant that allows for infrastructure to be set up in locations with lower costs, and maximizes load capacity, efficiency, and utilization.   

How to choose between them?

Cloud-based software is multi-tenanted, which means it can be shared with multiple customers. This modern approach is easier to set up with minimal hardware require and lower cost.  

Conversely, a hosted private cloud is only for a single-tenant—your business, which makes it ideal if you have an especially complex implementation, strict security rule, or sensitive data. 

There are benefits and drawbacks to both services. It’s imperative to put the requirements and evaluation criteria that meet your needs as priorities when choosing your ideal solution.  

After confirming the final deployment method, you can then determine a vendor fit based on your organizational goals, cost, security, and unique regulatory constraints. 

Here are some advantages of the two services: 

Advantages of Cloud-based services:

1. Flexibility: Cloud computing provides businesses flexibility and on-demand self-services in a few minutes. 
2. Diversity: It provides the ability to scale elasticity and deliver the right amount of IT resources. 
3. Security: Cloud strengthens your business security and protects your data from potential cyber-attacks. 

Advantages of Cloud-hosted services:

1. Reliability: Having your website hosted on the cloud, your website will always remain online as it has a large network of interconnected servers. 
2. Scalability: You can always scale your hosting plan anytime you want based on your requirements.  
3. Versatility: Various cloud hosting packages are available for customizing your specific business requirements.  

Printing in the cloud

With the rising popularity of cloud services, cloud has also expanded into printing. One important advantage to cloud printing is having the ability to access printers and copiers from anywhere there’s an Internet connection.  

Key benefits of cloud-based print services

Cost reduction

Moving to a cloud-based printing model allows companies to print on demand, which lowers print costs and eliminates the need for additional hardware and software. 

Flexibility and security

By moving print servers to the cloud, employees will gain multiple access to their own devices, including iPhone, iPad, Android, etc., to print from anywhere, any time through secure user authentication while reducing the need for IT support. 

Future technological innovation

A cloud-based platform is scalable and helps businesses to adapt to the changing environment easily which can better support the rapid delivery of other associated solutions or initiatives such as digitization, security, and analytics. 

When it comes to choosing between cloud-based services and cloud-hosted services, there is no right or wrong answer. It is more important to choose by evaluating the needs of your services and matching the solution that best meets them. 

Also check out : 3 Steps for Auditing a Cloud Service Provider