Datacenters and on-premises infrastructure are different approaches to managing IT resources and services. Each approach has its own set of benefits and considerations. Let's explore the benefits of both datacenters and on-premises infrastructure:
- Scalability: Datacenters are designed to provide scalable resources, allowing organisations to easily scale up or down based on their needs. This is particularly useful for businesses experiencing fluctuating workloads.
- Redundancy and Reliability: Datacenters have redundant power, cooling, and network systems, which enhances reliability and minimises downtime. They are designed to provide high availability and uptime.
- Security: Datacenters typically have advanced security measures, including physical security, fire suppression systems, access controls, and monitoring. This can provide a higher level of security and compliance than what some smaller organisations might be able to achieve on their own premises.
- Cost Efficiency: While the upfront costs of using datacenters can be high, they can be more cost-effective in the long term due to shared infrastructure, economies of scale, and reduced maintenance and management costs.
- Global Reach: Datacenters can be located in different geographic regions, allowing organisations to provide services to users worldwide with reduced latency.
On-Premises Infrastructure Benefits:
- Control: With on-premises infrastructure, organisations have complete control over their infrastructure location and day-to-day management. This can be important for certain businesses.
- Data Locality: Organisations that handle sensitive data might prefer to keep it on-site to maintain tighter control over data locality.
- Location Convenience: Having your business infrastructure on-site can be more convenient than traveling to an external datacentre.
- Expertise: Running an on-premises infrastructure requires in-house hardware and software maintenance expertise, whereas datacenters and third party providers such as EXN can provide managed services.
- Scalability: While datacenters offer better scalability, scaling on-premises infrastructure can be more challenging and might require additional investments.
- Downtime: On-premises infrastructure can suffer more extended downtime during maintenances, power outages, or hardware failures due to lack of redundancy. All EXN datacentres offer redundant power systems and the ability to scale your infrastructure to provide a more redundant set-up.
- Regulations and Compliance: Certain industries and regions have strict rules that might influence the choice between datacenters and on-premises infrastructure. However, London is among the most respected cities for data privacy laws, so many multinationals choose London for their colocation and connectivity needs.
Many organisations opt for a hybrid approach, combining the benefits of both datacenters and on-premises solutions to achieve the best balance for their specific needs.
We hope you found this article interesting and would welcome a conversation with any businesses considering or planning on adopting a hybrid or full relocation of their on-premise infrastructure:
Sales Intl: +44 (0)203 002 9259
