The decision to keep your company’s data on-premises or in the cloud (or to migrate it from one to the other) can seem complicated and intimidating at first. Even so, a lot of businesses—both big and small—are opting for a cloud solution. According to a 2020 survey, 41% of enterprise workloads will actually be running on public cloud platforms by the end of the year, with another 22% using a hybrid option that combines both. The survey also predicts that before the year is over, on-premises workloads will decrease by a full 10%, from 37% to 27%.
Small, medium and big enterprises are migrating to cloud storage because it generally meets all requirements as the best option, although there are some edge circumstances where it falls short.
To help you make a more informed decision, let’s examine the pros and cons of both cloud storage and on-premises storage.
What exactly is on-prem storage?
When your company uses on-premises storage, it means that its server is housed inside of its own infrastructure and, frequently, physically on-site. Your business’s internal IT team or an IT partner controls, manages, maintains, purchases, etc. the server. Through your local network, data and other information are shared between computers.
What is cloud storage?
With cloud storage, your data is hosted by a third-party service provider like Microsoft. All hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure for the cloud provider’s data centers are purchased, set up, and maintained by them. You use the internet to access these services and manage your account from a PC, mobile app, or web browser.
| Factors | Cloud storage | On-prem |
| Costs and maintenance | Fewer costs | Very costly |
| Security and threats protection | Well monitored and less accessible to cyber threats | Might be easily accessed by cyber threats |
| Compliance | Less monitoring and fewer costs | Constant compliance monitoring and can be costly |
| Scalability | Easy and automatic scale-up and scale down | Manual and complex scale-up and scale down |
| Reliability | Depends on fast internet connectivity | Depends on power availability |
| Data Backup | No risks of losing data | High risks of losing data |
| Access anywhere | Access to anything from anywhere | Only accessible when at the office |
| Integration of apps | Apps modernization is limitless | App modernization is limited |
| Hybrid solution | More flexibility | Less flexibility |
From the data above, you can see that cloud storage is more beneficial to your business in these digital times. Need to migrate to the cloud? We’ve got you! Fill out this form and we can get started!
