Cloud is a huge step forward for IT infrastructure management and application delivery, but on-premises still plays an important role for many business requirements.
Is Cloud the be all and end all?
It seems not a day goes by when we don’t hear the word cloud. Cloud technology and services has without a doubt revolutionised the way we run our entire business operations for the better. Does that mean private server and storage equipment will eventually be a thing of the past?
There are still numerous use cases where on-premises suits business needs better than a cloud service. A sensible multi cloud service management strategy means considering keeping some workloads and applications hosted locally on your premises.
Where on-premises is needed
With cloud adoption in full swing, new services appearing daily from private providers, and public providers such as AWS and Azure, there are still use cases for on-premises that the cloud doesn’t yet satisfy. Here are a few to consider:
- Remote locations: Unfortunately in Australia we still suffer the tyranny of long distances, where fast, business-grade networking services are not always available. It might be possible to use cloud services in remote locations, but in many cases it’s just not practical to wait hours for data to be sent to and from a cloud.
- Application support: Many enterprise applications are not yet available as a cloud service, and on-prem still provides a way to control, for better or worse, the upgrade cycles of such applications.
- Regulatory compliance: Some organisations aren’t permitted to store their data outside the country, or in some cases, jurisdictions. On-prem wins here, albeit by force.
A final point worth considering is risk management. Does your organisation have a business continuity plan if a cloud or hybrid cloud service were to go offline? Is your data backed up off the cloud? These are questions on-premises still provides an answer to.