Firefly hosted (internal or cloud)?

[ass17]

Any help with decision making, speed, Internet connection speeds required etc..

 

Do you use firefly in the cloud already, are you happy with it?

[DarrenShan]

We use the cloud based version of Firefly and we have no complaints.

[Edu-IT]

Is the cloud based version cheaper?

[DarrenShan]

I believe that you get a certain amount for storage for free and then they charge more for more space you use, to us the cost wasn't an issue, it's far easier for Firefly to manage to hosting, backup etc. than for us to have yet another server to manage.

[dhicks]

Any help with decision making, speed, Internet connection speeds required etc..

 

We have a locally hosted instance of Firefly here. That probably works out more expensive as you wind up having to pay for SQL Server CALs for all your client machines, plus an external connector license. Firefly's cloud storage is simply Amazon cloud storage, as is passed on at cost price, it's not excessive. Firefly now has good integration with Google Docs / Drive where you'll get unlimited storage anyway. We haven't moved to cloud-hosted Firefly as their single sign-on doesn't work with Active Directory for cloud-based Firefly, it uses data from the MIS instead. Our MIS (School Manager) isn't supported by Firefly, so that's an issue for us, but if you're using SIMS or something you'll probably be fine.

[Marshall_IT]

We have a locally hosted instance of Firefly here. That probably works out more expensive as you wind up having to pay for SQL Server CALs for all your client machines, plus an external connector license. Firefly's cloud storage is simply Amazon cloud storage, as is passed on at cost price, it's not excessive. Firefly now has good integration with Google Docs / Drive where you'll get unlimited storage anyway. We haven't moved to cloud-hosted Firefly as their single sign-on doesn't work with Active Directory for cloud-based Firefly, it uses data from the MIS instead. Our MIS (School Manager) isn't supported by Firefly, so that's an issue for us, but if you're using SIMS or something you'll probably be fine.

 

We use sims but I still have issues with them not offering a solution for sso with ad in the cloud, I don't see the reasoning for it.

 

Another thing to bare in mind when going cloud, a few of the things that you would like to change, ie some images in the template, can't be done through the gui, so we need to ask firefly to make these changes.

 

Again the supposed sso with office 365 still requires all users to log in with their email address first, Crete an account and then link it to o365. I was looking for a way to make it easier for staff and hopefully not require them to remember another password. But this is far more complex!