Webex cloud Vs Webex on premises

[Shakeeb AlDari]

Hi all,

can any one support in summarizing in breif the main difference, advantages and disadvanteges of cisco webex on cloud or on premises.

Thanks,

[Jonathan Schulenberg]

I'm not sure how to answer this without a bit of editoralizing. CWMS is literally a port/fork of the cloud with a few patches added on (e.g. LDAP sync support). The port happened in 2012 when early WBS28 was the current cloud release. This means that any improvements within the last 18-24 months don't exist in CWMS, only the cloud. Examples of this are 720p HD video, WebEx Enabled Telepresence, WebEx Productivity Tools for Mac, MP4 standards-based network recordings, nearly all of the mobile client enhancements, etc.

At some point they will port the new WebEx Meetings code base down to CWMS and the feature gap will close again; however, the product managers freely admit that they intend CWMS to always lag the cloud in functionality. They view CWMS as a niche product that is only for customers with specific requirements (e.g. security, capex vs. opex) which force them into an on-premise model. Nearly all partners view this as a serious miscalculation of the market, at least how it exists today.

Even with that boat anchor attached to CWMS I still have customers deploying it. It's far more economical than the cloud, at least without taking ongoing operational costs into the picture which few seem to do. In my opinion, you have to be comfortable with considerable feature lag to deploy CWMS. Heck, it didn't get Android client support until 2.0 which is about to ship in early January I think. Great product though and Cisco's best admin UI to date.

Please remember to rate helpful responses and identify helpful or correct answers.

[Jonathan Schulenberg]

This thread is still showing up in search results six-plus years later. As a status update, end of sale has now been announced for CWMS: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/conferencing/webex-meetings-server/eos-eol-notice-c51-743312.html

Current choices are Webex Meetings and Cisco Meeting Server (CMS, formerly Acano). I encourage anyone facing this platform decision to gravitate toward Webex Meetings. The Collaboration Flex agreement, typically starting with an Active User entitlement, is a very attractive purchasing model. Audio has traditionally been a large cost component of conferencing platforms and that has improved significantly as well; just work with your Cisco team and partner. You can also leverage Webex Edge Audio to: a) keep callbacks to your company-owned telephone numbers as VoIP, also providing the benefit of wideband audio; and, b) selectively leverage your on-premises PSTN trunking capacity for outbound calls where it makes sense.
CMS is also a great product but it can be quite challenging to learn. Most of the configuration is done by API calls and you really need a thorough understanding of the API in order to effectively wield the significant capabilities available. Those who must go this route may want to look at VQ Communications Conference Manager (https://www.vqcomms.com/) to aid with the configuration effort.