Cloud Vs On-Premise: IT Infrastructure Model of Your Choice?

By Veritis

Cloud Vs On Premise: IT Infrastructure Model of Your Choice?

IT infrastructure has been undergoing transition over decades. The IT industry has matured to a stage where infrastructure maintenance is easily manageable from the level of traditional hardware with heavy maintenance.

Cloud infrastructure is one solution in that journey that simplifies IT maintenance concerns by taking care of core infrastructure aspects over the network. However, Cloud solutions are not a complete answer because of the strong preferences for on-premise solutions on the other side.

The Cloud vs on-premise installations differences is various. While Cloud infrastructure is enabled over the network, on-premise servers (as the name suggests) deal with infrastructure at organizational premises or on-site. However, both solutions aim to reduce organizational costs and maintenance burdens through the implementation of agile IT infrastructure. Cloud infrastructure has already proved to be cost-effective and easier for small businesses, majorly for its agile and flexible integrations at affordable costs.

But how about infrastructure management at the enterprise level that maintains strict data policies? To what extent will Cloud computing infrastructure be successful here? Will they have to look for a managed on-premises model?
Planning Migration to Cloud

Stuck at this point?

Answers to these questions lie in understanding key differentiators between the Cloud Vs On-premise models.

1) Hosting

Cloud vs On Premise Hosting

Hosting is the first factor that shows us a big difference between on-premise and Cloud infrastructure models.
As we see the on-premise servers, the infrastructure is maintained at the premises of the organization. This directly means the requirement of additional maintenance personnel for server management.
Whereas Cloud solutions work otherwise, and the Cloud infrastructure is maintained over the network.

The Cloud Service Providers (CSP) in place will (by default) take care of the Cloud computing environment. Be it upgrading software, addressing downtimes, repair, and maintenance, and more pertaining to the accommodated public Cloud computing servers.

Coming to sudden scenarios like server blackouts, Cloud solutions work their way with high scalability offerings.

Key Factors Cloud On-Premise
Server Location Third-party Cloud Physical, On-premises
Maintenance Off-site On-site
Server Blackouts Possible but Scalable Possible
On-Demand Easily Scalable Consumes Time and Effort

2) Deployment

Cloud vs On Premise Deployment

Having an on-premise server model means maintaining infrastructure on your own, which directly reflects in investment for servers, software, and technical personnel.

In that case, the entire risk at times of failure lies with the organization!

Whereas, Cloud computing infrastructure presents a safer perspective to your business. In Cloud solutions, any loss incurs you only the subscription charges needed for utilizing its virtual environment.

Cloud virtual infrastructure also offers you high flexibility in the implementation of broader infrastructure.

Cloud integration also facilitates faster installation and support services, while it might take days together to get an on-premise server on board. A system administrator with Cloud support can perform at a rate ten times faster than in an on-premise infrastructure.

Key Factors Cloud On-Premise
Installation Easy and fast Time-consuming
Availability On-demand When bought and deployed
Investment Less High
Business Risks Low High

3) Workflow and Delivery

Cloud vs On Premise Workflow and Delivery

Straight answer to this Cloud!

Cloud is known for its ability to:

  • Offer unlimited memory space
  • Timely backup
  • On-demand Cloud solutions availability
  • Faster rate of application launch and release
  • Timely software upgrades without the need for additional hardware in case of own datacenter
  • Ability to handle workloads

This might not be the case with an on-premise server. But testing and running workloads on the Cloud computing environment can be a temporary solution for those with on-premise infrastructure.

Key Factors Cloud On-Premise
Unlimited Memory Yes No
Back-up Timely Effort-intensive
Rate of Application Launch and Deployment High Low
Ability to handling workloads High Low
Process Delivery Smooth Chances of interruption

4) Energy Savings

Cloud vs On Premise Energy Savings

Considering the number of energy servers consume, having on-premise server deployment involves more energy expenditure.

While the servers consumes 100 percent of its required power, managed on-premise servers demand 10-20 percent of the server’s power.

This naturally turns into a maintenance burden for organizations as they own the infrastructure and end up dreaming about energy savings.

Whereas, Cloud integration platform deals away with this challenge as maintenance responsibility lies with service providers.

While energy consumption comes as part of a package in a Cloud service model, the on-premise model throws that burden on to the organization.

Techniques like airflow management are being used to address the issue of heavy power consumption.

Key Factors Cloud On-Premise
Energy Savings Comes part of a package To be managed individually
Cost-Savings High Low
Scope for SMEs High Low
Scope for Corporates High Low
Maintenance Burden Taken care of by CSP Enterprise’s responsibility

5) Bandwidth Enhancement

Cloud vs On Premise Energy Bandwidth Enhancement

Cloud solutions give enterprises the flexibility to upgrade their requirements, be it memory, software, server space, etc.

One can make the best use of virtual servers, virtual routers and additional networks in Cloud to enhance the size, and capacities of existing storage.

All you have to do is upgrade your Cloud computing service models!

This is not the case with on-premises infrastructure, where enhancement of bandwidth and capacity means physically deploying new servers.

However, one advantage that on-premises users can enjoy is ‘security’. Since you manage things physically with on-premises servers, you will have to make custom configurations in line with your organizational needs.

Cloud infrastructure fails here as the organizations will only have to choose from the available options Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) provide.

Key Factors Cloud On-Premise
Bandwidth Enhancement On-demand Demands new deployments
Hardware CSP’s responsibility Organization’s responsibility
Configurations Standard Customizable

6) Access Control

Cloud vs On Premise Energy Access Control

Unexpected blackouts, malware, critical system failure and technical are common with any system.

But how you overcome the disaster is the real challenge.

Cloud infrastructure stands a step ahead in this aspect compared to the on-premises model.

Cloud solutions provide organizations instant access to its virtual resources in case of any disaster. With these features of Cloud computing, you can backup, restore and reboot software as well as data in a virtual environment.

Whereas in on-premises, the responsibility of security and privacy needs lies with the organization.

Key Factors Cloud On-Premise
Malware Removal Easy Difficult
Vulnerability to Attacks Yes Yes
Responsibility of failure CSP Organization

The Result

On an end note, we put before you the following significant differences between Cloud Vs On-premise models:

  • CAPEX and OPEX: On-premise adds to capital expenditure; Cloud means operational cost offering higher flexibility to pay for what you use.
  • Disaster Recovery: Major advantage that Cloud enjoys over on-premises because of its application and data storage options
  • Security: Both solutions are equally vulnerable to security. The decision here depends on the situation!

Not able to make a decision?

Stevie Award Winner Veritis can help you!

Our decade-old experience in offering Cloud solutions & services to different firms (including Fortune 500 firms) can get your issue resolved.

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FAQ’s about Cloud and On-Premise

Cloud computing is the on demand delivery of IT services over the internet to host resources like servers, emails, storage, networking, analytics, and data.

These services are divided into three categories and they are Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (SaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

On-premise infrastructure is nothing but operating your own physical infrastructure to run emails, storage, facilities, network, and servers on the premises designated by you.
There are various benefits of cloud computing, and some are cost-saving, security, flexibility, mobility, increased collaboration, quality control, disaster recovery, and more.

The major advantage of on-premise software is data protection. The data is stored on local environment, and the user will have complete control over its security.

Apart from security, there are two significant advantages of on-premise - cost, and connectivity.

The comparison between cloud and on-premises software is where it resides. In cloud computing, the software is hosted on the vendor’s software and accessed through the internet, while on-premises software is hosted on the local environment for your company’s own servers.
Hosting is the first aspect that shows us a big difference between cloud and on-premise infrastructure models. In the cloud, the infrastructure is maintained over the network, while on-premise, the infrastructure is maintained at the company’s premises.

According to a survey by Cisco, Cloud computing will virtually replace traditional data centers in the coming years.

Cloud data center traffic witnessed 95 percent of the total data traffic center in 2021.

Cloud security servers have been considered equally secure, user-friendly, affordable, flexible, and highly scalable than on-premise servers. Both of them are equally secure in the current scenario in terms of security.

Cloud computing is relatively cheaper than on-premise for setup, maintenance, running, and overall support costs.

However, based on the requirements of a business, there are some cases in which on-premise software is cheaper.

The purchase of a traditional on-premise environment for your server licenses upfront is typically pretty expensive. On the other hand, cloud storage is cheaper than on-premise at lower data levels.

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