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With the latest developments and services offered through the cloud, IT managers and CIOs are becoming very sceptical if they will move some or all of their services to the cloud.

Nevertheless, it is clear that in years to come, cloud will be the “must have” service for obvious reasons. In the following tables, the advantages and disadvantages of both Cloud and On-premise servers are demonstrated.

Cloud Servers

Advantages

• Guarantee Availability with an SLA (99.99%)
• Avoid downtime when a natural disaster takes place
• Remove single point of failure
• Disaster recovery ready
• Improve security
• Lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
• Save time on maintenance
• Fast setup
• Easy scalability
• Eliminate connectivity issues
• Anytime, anywhere access

Disadvantages

• Slower speed of connection (server offsite)
• Lack of complete control
• Ongoing Opex cost

On-Premise servers

Advantages

• Speed of operation (onsite)
• Total Control
• Customization

Disadvantages

• Downtime
• Single point of failure
• High Capex cost (+ new server every 5 years)
• Strain on Internal resource
• Slow setup
• Scalability is complicated and expensive
• Remote user connectivity issues

Conclusions

As the above tables demonstrate, cloud servers have many more advantages than hosted servers. At this point we would like to stress out that with on-premise servers the costs are on a capex basis and also there are several running expenses such as maintenance, electricity, licensing, etc. On the other side, with cloud servers you pay what you use which means that the costs are on an operational basis.

Nevertheless, the choice has to be taken from the IT department in collaboration with the management of the company after evaluating the above pros and cons of both solutions.

For more information do not hesitate to contact with us at [email protected]