Any organizations solely depend on data for everything they do. No matter what the industry is, access to the data is necessary to make decisions. 

Have you asked yourself a question as a business owner that where will all this data stored?

Options to store your data are available to you if you take space on a cloud by connecting with an IT consulting firm or on-premises data center. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. By looking at it, you can quickly determine which will be the right for your business. 

Cloud vs. data – let’s know them.

  • Public cloud 

A cloud data service is a remote version of a data center. It is located away from your company’s physical premise and lets you access your data through the internet. The IT consulting firm that manages the cloud services performs ongoing maintenance and updates, which is required. They also own multiple data centers in other geographic locations to protect your data during interruption of service or any other failures. 

Advantages of having a cloud service

1) Cost effective 

If you are adopting a cloud-based solution, for example, using Saas for healthcare, you need to pay for the resources you use and can align your cost to your business requirements. There will be no overprovision of resources and so no spike in cost when a new server enclosure is required. All the capital expenses turn into operational expenses.  

2) Innumerable service availability

Once you have an account on the cloud, countless services will be available to your business. You can also use technologies based on pay per use; otherwise, that would be beyond your budget or technical capabilities. For example, you can include machine learning, artificial intelligence, voice to text, etc.

Disadvantage of cloud

1) Complex billing

You can definitely save costs by migrating to the public cloud, but you will need to stay top on billing. Public cloud meters charge for the things that you will never need to measure in your data center. For instance, storage Put and Get request, bandwidth, and API calls. 

2) Vendor lock-in

It is a problem in cloud computing where customers depend on a single cloud provider and cannot easily move in the future to different vendors. Expensive network charges will hit you if you want to migrate your data again. 

Datacenter

A data center refers to hardware stored on your premises and accesses the data through your local network. An in-house IT department maintains the data on your company’s payroll. 

Advantage of data center

Fixed cost

When you take rack space in a data center and install your equipment, you can exactly know what your infrastructure is going to cost. There will be no dreadful surprises on your bill. You may have small metered line items for over usage of power or bandwidth. However, it can be negotiated into your contract at a fixed cost. 

More technology choices

When you are purchasing your hardware and software and installing it into a data center, you can have your choice in terms of vendor offerings. Want a hardware security module or graphic accelerator? No issue, go right ahead and buy what you need. 

Disadvantages of data center

Uneven upgrade cost

Upgraded costs in the data center are lumpier than in the public cloud. Have you run out of rack space? You will need to take another rack. Filled up that storage area network? Another shelf will be expensive to set.

Availability is expensive 

To achieve high availability, you need to essentially buy 2 of everything when you run your data center. After buying it, you need to split your infrastructure between locations. And ensure that you have enough network connectivity between sites so that it can handle data replication.

Which one is better for you?

There is no one answer. The best option is that you go with one who helps you achieve your business goals with what available resources you have. In some cases, your IT staff will stop you from exploring the options. A small staff doesn’t have experience and enough expertise that they can work on cloud migrating solutions and on-premise data centers. They will not let be the right one to choose which option is better for you.

And you will end up mixing both public cloud and on-premise data centers. Some are perfect for the cloud, and some are satisfied using a data center. Most businesses will end up using a hybrid setup, and there is nothing wrong with that. But in these, IT consulting firms who manage cloud services can help you. They have well trained, experienced professionals who can help you to decide which solution is best for your organizations. They will help you with planning, implementing, and managing your project very well.