Hosting your company data on-prem or in the cloud can be a tough call for small and medium-sized businesses. There are operational costs and security implications to consider when deciding on your information platform.
On-prem can be more secure and controllable sometimes, but the cost of all the equipment and protections can rule out physical storage for the average business.
When considering the cloud, consult an expert in your chosen area, such as a Microsoft Azure partner or AWS consultant.
Below, we’ve highlighted why hosting information in the cloud might be a better option for small- to medium-sized businesses.
Security
For larger businesses with unlimited resources and IT budgets, it’s easy to purchase multiple security devices and software packages to protect their on-premise network. When you’re a small or medium-sized business, the budget may not be there for the same level of protection.
Moving your data into the cloud can allow your business these larger-scale protections without spending the money yourself.
As long as your data is with a reputable supplier, cloud storage is the solution that can take the stress and cost out of supplying your own security equipment.
Deployment
Deploying an on-premise system takes a long time. Installation of server operating systems is at least an hour, depending on the deployment method. Installing the components can be even more time-consuming and require expertise that cannot be fumbled with all those expensive parts in the mix.
Cloud services are designed to be quick to deploy and easy to configure, with the intention of your business using them as soon as possible. Cloud deployments can be ready to go as fast as clicking a button. Plus, only resources being used are billed to any customer.
With cloud services like Microsoft Azure or AWS, your bill can flex monthly based on user totals, active resource use, or live software. This kind of structure is kinder to businesses with a smaller budget, allowing them to flex to their needs.
Backup
With on-premise devices comes a hefty storage cost. Storing within the server or using a Storage Area Network (SAN) to manage your data usage, you’ll need just as much additional space to store backups. Most on-premise users store their backups in the cloud, which can impact the company’s network usage, especially the initial backup, if done without seeding it first.
With cloud solutions, backups are usually included by the cloud provider, but if not, due to their datacenter location, there is less of a chance of a failure incident.
Cost
Finally, due to the flexibility of cloud services, costs are usually significantly lower than using an on-premise infrastructure. The cost of ownership is reduced considerably for better systems, security and backups.
Without having to manage the maintenance on the devices hosting your data, your operational cost is lower and therefore impact on IT staff is significantly reduced. This reduction frees their time to deal with your user issues rather than worrying about updating to the latest firmware, hardware or software version.
