There has always been a debate around which one’s better for the company – keeping your data on premise or moving it to the Cloud.

While both have their own use cases, what are the major parameters that one should consider while deciding on whether to move on stay put?

Here are 3 major parameters to consider, why and how.

1. Customizable vs Scalable

A company running its own data center has control over a lot of things like the location of the data center, hardware, security, management and much more.
But, one must not forget that a data center has limited capacity. In the era where companies target exponential growth, the resources required to grow at that speed also grow exponentially.

Cloud, on the other hand, gives you the opportunity to scale with almost unlimited capacity. All this at jet speed.

2. Security

In a traditional data center, security has to be managed by the company itself. There are multiple aspects that one needs to take care of in this scenario – On Site Guards, Video Surveillance, Access Control, Security Personnel, DDoS Monitoring & Protection, Firewall, etc.

While if a company decides to move to the Cloud, security has two aspects – Security of the Cloud and Security in the Cloud.

Security of the Cloud is taken care of by the Cloud Service Provider which includes Physical security, Firewalls, Compliances, Video Surveillance, Access Control, etc.

A company who is using Cloud then is left with taking care of the Security in the Cloud. For example, if they have an Application hosted in the Cloud, they need to ensure Application level security.

3. Cost

Obviously, if your company builds a data center from the ground up, this will take a lot of time, and your company will be responsible for the system’s maintenance and administration. Operating a large data center can cost a company millions of dollars every year.

A cloud service is by far more cost-effective, especially for small companies. It does not require anywhere as much time or money to set up and run. The cloud service is available for your company’s use almost immediately upon registration.