Hybrid POS – More than just Edge Computing

Picture this: It’s Saturday night, your restaurant is packed, and the internet suddenly goes down. Orders are piling up, customers are getting restless, and your staff is scrambling to find a solution. Your Cloud-based Point of Sale (POS) system, which seemed like a cost-effective choice, is now a bottleneck because it’s entirely dependent on that one crucial internet connection.

This is where Hybrid POS comes to the rescue. Unlike Cloud Computing, which relies on low-powered hardware and remote servers, or Edge Computing, which keeps your operations local but still heavily leans on the cloud for data storage, Hybrid POS offers the best of both worlds.

Hybrid Computing differs from Edge, Cloud, and Legacy Computing in several ways:

• Cloud Computing generally relies on low-powered consumer-grade hardware to communicate with a powerful cloud server to maintain an operational state.
• Edge Computing relies on more robust equipment, but an overall emphasis that data lives in the cloud, and operations live locally. 
• Hybrid Computing relies on robust hardware capable of detaching from the cloud and maintaining full operational status.
• Legacy Computing is entirely server-based, relying solely on traditional on-premises infrastructure without cloud capabilities (traditional POS). 

Imagine your point-of-sale device is a vehicle.  The driver of the vehicle is the business owner, and there are several passengers on board: 

• The customer’s data – name, address, phone number, buying history
• Their payment information – credit card number
• The business’s data – item sales data, volume, and historical trends
• The business’s demographics – geographic location, employee information

Whether Cloud Computing or Hybrid, the destination is the same place – the server.

Now, let’s say there are blocks in the path to that destination.  Traffic, accidents, and road closures can create panic for the business owner.  With Cloud Computing relying on a remote server, there are way more opportunities for blocks in the path halting operations than if the server is on the same local network.

As the threat of cyber-attacks moves downstream from Home Depot, Target, and Ascension Hospitals towards the SMB space, it is more important than ever to protect your data.  As the saying goes, if you connect it, protect it.

Cloud-only Computing sends a maximum amount of data stored in the cloud on the client’s behalf.  This creates an environment where a compromised connection to the cloud could yield an unending pipeline of data to cyber criminals. 

Hybrid Computing, not requiring the cloud, offers the user several safeguards to protect against cyber-crime such as the ability to set up zero trust firewalls, the ability to hire a managed services provider, or disconnecting the system completely in the event of a known attack.  Of course, hybrid computing doesn’t stop cyber-crime, but it allows the modern business owner the piece of mind that they have further control over their promulgation of their data.

Remember our vehicle? There are also lots of people looking to crash vehicles and steal everything inside.

Why choose Hybrid POS?

Hybrid POS offers the maximum flexibility of traditional on-premises servers with the functionality of Cloud POS systems (ease of integration, lower up-front costs, and web services). And, because of the server living on site, the ability to protect all your customer’s and your own precious data. 

In the end

Business owners must decide what’s best for their business. If they believe that the cloud is infallible and unbreachable, then they should ultimately choose what is best for them.  Otherwise, being in control of your data is the best way to ensure that it is protected.