IT Infrastructure services
Cloud
Disaster Prevention
Cybersecurity services
Digital Infrastructure deployments have become a vital factor for any successful digital transformation journey in any business organization. However, with the increasing number of innovative cloud technologies, it is not easy to decide on what type of infrastructure to build on. The IT Infrastructure has become more complex with the use of cloud-based platforms and environments. It is very important to give customers a better user experience as well as cost benefits for the business organization.
Although the usage of cloud technologies has increased over the years, there are still some concerns in many organizations for cloud migrations due to various reasons. Therefore, it is still important to be aware of the limitations and advantages of different types of IT Infrastructure available.
An on-premises infrastructure is a setup that has data located on the premises of the organization’s data center.
On a cloud infrastructure, data runs and is hosted on remote cloud servers. Essentially, cloud servers provide businesses with hardware and software components they can rent on a subscription basis. The cloud services may include storage, computation, and networking capabilities.
Recent years have seen a shift toward hybrid IT infrastructure. In hybrid environments, on-premises and cloud services are combined. By collaborating between the two platforms, workloads can change depending on computing needs and costs. As a result, business operations can be performed more efficiently and with greater flexibility.
Let’s see how these three fares on different parameters.
Cost
On-premises: Initial investment capital tends to be high, as not just development but as well as associated IT and hardware costs must be borne.
Cloud: Initial investment is much lower and no additional hardware is needed. Furthermore, costs tend to become predictable over time.
Hybrid: The obvious advantage is the ability to use cloud-based services as and when required means organizations pay more only when extra computing is needed.
Maintenance
On-premises: The organization’s IT team will be responsible for ensuring the availability of services and disaster recovery operations.
Cloud: The service provider is responsible for security and a solid backup plan for recovery of data.
Hybrid: This depends on which operation the organization conducts in-house and which it computes on the cloud. In any case, the organization retains the option to safeguard its processes and data as it sees fit.
Reliability
On-premises: The organization has full control over the entire IT department, it can constantly monitor situations and predict when and why services might be down.
Cloud: Cloud-based services can be accessed from anywhere in the world at any time, provided security checks are cleared. However, valuable data must be entrusted to the vendor.
Hybrid: In case of any problems on-premises, operations can be conducted on the cloud. And in case the cloud is inaccessible for some reason, on-premises operations can pick up the slack.
Scalability
On-premises: Long-term planning and a commitment of resources are required to expand the scope of on-premises infrastructure operations.
Cloud: Little effort and time are needed to scale up or scale down as per requirements. Wastage of resources is also minimized.
Hybrid: Depending on which operations the organization conducts on-premises, and which are conducted on the cloud, scalability varies.
Control and security
On-premises: The organization can estimate risks and take all logical steps to reduce the same.
Cloud: The cloud vendor holds all control.
Hybrid: The organization has the freedom to create security solutions for sensitive data and critical operations and rely on the vendor for the rest.
Customization
On-premises: Customization is feasible, but additional costs may be incurred when software is updated by the vendor.
Cloud: Huge scope for customization and the latest innovations and improvements are available in the form of updates.
Hybrid: Customization is easy, provided the on-premises infrastructure is flexible.
Implementation
On-premises: Implementation process can be completed immediately or in instalments as per the requirements of the organization.
Cloud: Can be swiftly implemented and workers do not need long training programs to work with the same.
Hybrid: Implementation is fast as the on-premises infrastructure can be used as a readymade launch pad for cloud-based operations, many of which will have already been tested and provisioned by the vendor.