Choose the right place for you. on-premise vs Cloud

Abimuktheeswaran Chidambaram
3 min readJan 26, 2024

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Cloud usage and adoption are continuing to grow, but many organizations are still battling with the thought of moving to the cloud. By the end, you will be able to decide for yourself which option is right for you and your company. The architecture of cloud and on-premise is very different. In this article, we will see the differences between on-premise and cloud. Here are some key areas

  1. Cost
  2. Scalability
  3. Security
  4. Storage
  5. Availability

1. Cost

On-premises needs a lot of money for maintaining their infrastructure (physical), software, and IT staff. It is based on capital expenses (CAPEX). It means major purchases and used for the long term.

Cloud needs less money compared to on-premise it uses pay only for what you use. It is based on operational expenses (OPEX). It means no major purchases and is used for short-term like day-to-day activities.

2. Scalability

Accessing the data in on-premise is limited connectivity over on-line (or) off-line within the organization, data center, etc. On-premises requires significant upfront investments and fixed resource capacity to change business needs. Scalability is difficult here.

Accessing the data from the cloud over the internet from anywhere, everywhere. So it is low-latency and difficult if the internet is slow. The public cloud allows you to scale up or down as needed so scalability is not difficult. Thanks to its flexibility, businesses can quickly and easily change to match customer demands. It is used in cost, storage, performance, and efficiency.

3. Security

On-premises security and Cloud security have the same goal of protecting the data by using their types of equipment (hardware and software) to avoid attacks.

On-premise deploying locally at the on-premise location. They store the data locally. So you have complete control, customization, and visibility. The possibility of data breach and data loss is greater while taking the backup and data in transit.

cloud service provider deploying remotely at cloud location. They store the data remotely. So you do not have complete control, customization, and visibility. The possibility of data breach and data loss is very low while taking the backup and data in transit.

4. Storage

In on-premise they store the data locally on local servers or storage devices. Accessibility is limited and requires online (or) offline. Availability is less. Managed by your organization so you have total control, customization, and visiblity.

In cloud they store the data remotely on servers or storage devices in data centres. Accessibility is limited and requires online. Scalability and Availability is more. Managed by your CSP so you have less control, less customization, and no visiblity.

5. Availablity

Most on-premises systems may just have two physical servers that failover to one another. That isn’t helpful if there’s a fire or a large network outage. It takes a lot of time and money to recover the data from physical theft or natural disasters.

When you move the data to the cloud, data is stored in one data center and distributed to multiple data centers in multiple regions. So, cloud providers achieve availability through virtualization and cross-region replication. It is very useful in migration, disaster recovery, etc.

Note: Finally, on-premise is more in secure, and less in accessbility, scalability, and availability than cloud. But cloud always requires internet access. People claim that the cloud is more secure than on-premise if they configure the settings correctly. Nowadays cloud is investing heavily in security and technology. Hybrid storage is a great option for organizations that want the security of on-prem storage with the flexibility of cloud storage. When choosing between on-premise and cloud consider the unique needs of your business, both in short- and long-term.

Cloud supports legacy systems (outdated software and applications) without requiring additional cost for maintaining, gives more flexible and scalable, offers high level of security. Before migrating the data to the cloud ensure that “there is no data loss, type of legacy system, potential downtime" are not cause disturbance during the migration process.

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