On-prem vs Cloud Data Protection Solutions: Which is Better for Your Needs?

Data protection is a critical concern for businesses of all sizes. With cyber-attacks increasing every day, it’s important to choose the right solution that will protect your data while ensuring business continuity. The two popular solutions in the market today are cloud and on-premise (on-prem) solutions. While both have their advantages and disadvantages, choosing one over the other can make a significant difference in terms of security, cost, flexibility, and scalability. In this blog post, we’ll dive into the benefits of each approach so you can make an informed decision about which option is best suited for your organization’s needs when it comes to cloud data protection.

What is On-Prem?

On-prem can include data systems that are located on-prem such as a corporate headquarters, a branch, edge location, a CoLo facility, a data center or even a private cloud. Traditionally on-prem was thought as Capex (capital expenditures) where hardware such as servers and storage were purchased and paid for upfront. Nfina offers many options for procuring on-prem IT infrastructure such as leasing, subscription, fully managed Opex solutions, and purchasing.

Benefits of On-Prem Solution

On-prem solutions refer to data protection systems that are installed at a corporate headquarters, a branch, edge location, a CoLo facility, data center or private cloud and managed in-house. One of the main benefits of this solution is complete control over your data, which means you can protect it according to your specific needs and requirements.

With an on-prem solution, businesses have more control over their security protocols as they don’t have to rely on third-party services for updates or maintenance. This ensures that all sensitive information remains secure within the organization’s network.

Another significant advantage of choosing an on-prem solution is customization. Businesses can customize the system based on their unique requirements, ensuring that they meet strict compliance regulations and industry standards.

Moreover, with an on-prem solution, businesses don’t have to worry about connectivity issues or slow internet speed affecting their ability to access data quickly. They also tend to provide faster response times since the hardware resources aren’t shared with other customers.

Using an on-premises approach may give organizations greater peace of mind concerning regulatory compliance because companies maintain full ownership of all data under such a setup.

Additionally, these solutions let companies benefit from a higher level of data security, as most on-prem solutions are designed with enterprise-level security protocols in mind. This means sensitive information is kept out of the reach of outside parties, including criminals and hackers. Furthermore, having an on-prem solution also allows for improved scalability since businesses can easily add or remove hardware resources as needed.

Nfina’s hybrid cloud solutions include geo-redundant active-active disaster recovery. With this approach your IT infrastructure is replicated across multiple locations in different geographic regions. This ensures that even if one location experiences an outage or fails completely, the other location can continue operations seamlessly.

On-prem solutions typically have more uptime because they are less likely to have interruptions due to loss of internet connectivity.

Contrary to what is written by the media and what most people believe on-prem solutions cost much less than the public cloud. The public cloud is very expensive, even with a geo-redundant digital twin, Nfina’s hybrid cloud solutions typically run about half the cost of public cloud solutions over a five year period.

Benefits of Cloud Solutions

Cloud solutions offer many benefits for data protection needs. One of the key advantages is accessibility. With cloud-based solutions, your data can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, making it easier to collaborate with remote teams and access important files while on-the-go.

Another advantage is scalability, as cloud providers allow you to easily increase or decrease storage capacity based on your changing needs. This means you only pay for what you need and can avoid costly hardware investments. This is a great solution if your infrastructure varies frequently, or you need to scale up containers in a geographic location for demand. But most small and midsize organizations have a fixed size IT infrastructure, which do not require scaling up and down.

Cloud data protection solutions offer backup and disaster recovery as an add on option which helps to ensure your data is safe in the event of a system failure or outage. Unfortunately including disaster recovery from the cloud is very expensive. Many organizations opt just to purchase the backup option which does protect your organization from downtime.

With cloud data protection solutions, updates are typically provided by the provider which eliminates the need for maintenance and upgrades associated with on-prem systems.

Security Considerations

When it comes to data protection, security is always a major concern. Both cloud and on-prem solutions have their own unique security considerations that need to be taken into account.

For on-prem solutions, the physical security of the server room or data center is paramount. Access controls can help prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information. Additionally, Nfina’s hybrid cloud solutions include geo-redundant backup and disaster recovery which helps to guarantee that your data is recoverable in case of any unforeseen events. Immutable snapshots are used when sending backup to all locations safeguarding that your data is protected in transit and on the servers.

Cloud data protection solutions often use encryption for data at rest and in transit between users and servers. It’s important to understand how your cloud provider manages encryption keys and what level of control you have over them.

Whichever option you choose, it’s essential to conduct regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to identify any potential weaknesses in your system’s security protocols. Regular updates and patches must also be applied promptly across all devices connected with either option. To help confirm your backups are intact and functioning, Nfina’s Nfina-View™ software has backup testing built in, allowing you to test your backup. This functionality is typically not available or is very expensive to carry out with cloud data protections solutions.

Ultimately, when it comes down to choosing between on-prem or cloud data protection solution for your organization’s data protection needs, weighing up each aspect carefully will help determine which one offers better overall value while still maintaining optimal levels of security measures implemented by experts in both scenarios alike.

Cost Considerations

When it comes to data protection solutions, cost is a significant consideration for any business. It has often been thought that on-prem solutions require expensive upfront costs of hardware and software licenses. This is no longer the case, Nfina offers many pay-as-you-go pricing models such as leasing, subscription, fully managed Opex solutions, and purchasing for obtaining on-prem IT infrastructure. Nfina’s hybrid cloud solutions include professional services, we manage your infrastructure, so there are few if any ongoing maintenance costs.

Cloud data protection solutions offer monthly pricing models that allow businesses to pay only for what they use. Unfortunately to receive any discount, you must commit to 3-year terms which still ties you into long term commitment. In addition, once you’re in the cloud, most would anticipate remaining in the cloud, so you can be assured that your cost will go up every time your contract comes up for renewal. Even with 3-year terms, cloud data protection solutions can cost as much as two times Nfina’s hybrid cloud solutions. Month-to-month contracts will drive that cost even higher.

Ultimately every business has different needs and priorities when considering their data protection options; hence it’s crucial always putting into perspective how much each option will impact their pockets while still providing adequate security measures.

Remember – choosing between on-prem and cloud data protection isn’t just about picking one method over another but rather determining what best suits your organization depending on various factors such as budget and size among others.

Flexibility and Scalability Considerations

After analyzing the benefits and considerations of both on-prem and cloud solutions for data protection, it is clear that there are pros and cons to each option.

On-prem solutions provide more control and customization over data protection. On the other hand, cloud data protection solutions offer flexibility, scalability, and accessibility from anywhere with an internet connection but may pose security concerns.

Ultimately, businesses should carefully evaluate their specific needs before deciding which solution is better suited for them. Factors such as budget constraints, IT resources availability, compliance requirements, data volume growth projection can influence the decision significantly.

Conclusion

A lot of information that has been written over the years about which infrastructure is best, unfortunately, a lot if it simply isn’t accurate. Regarding cost, on-prem is not more expensive than the public cloud. Traditionally on-prem solutions are referred to as requiring a lot of upfront expenses for hardware and licenses without regard for fact that hardware should have a life of at least five years. Nfina offers many buying options that debunks this old concept plus you can simply do the math, get a quote for cloud infrastructure, and multiply it times 60 months. Now compare this number to the cost of on-prem solutions. Most articles claim that the cloud is more flexible and scalable. When referring to containers and the ability to scale up or down quickly this is true but considering most small and midsize business have fixed size infrastructure, this really isn’t an issue. Nfina has scale-up and scale-out solutions that allow you to affordably add compute and storage as your organization grows.

Don’t forget to consider the cost of downtime. In 2014 a Gartner report stated that downtime for the average midmarket organizations was $5,600 per minute, or about $300,000 per hour, or $2.4M per day. The data from this report is almost a decade old now, so we know that the cost for downtime has increased substantially. Even if you’re organization is a smaller midmarket, downtime could easily exceed $1M per day. Can your organization afford downtime and disruptions?

Choosing between on-prem or cloud data protection solutions depends on your business’s unique needs. Although both have their advantages and disadvantages over each other in terms of security considerations or cost factors, only you know what works best when it comes down to managing your information securely while ensuring its integrity always remains intact! Whichever option you choose, be sure to keep your data secure by enforcing a comprehensive data security policy within your organization.

At Nfina, our Eco-Friendly Solutions make it easy for our customers to achieve a lower carbon footprint and play a positive role in bringing about a sustainable future. We design technologies and products to help people understand their impact and actions better.

Nfina’s Hybrid Cloud and Hyperconverged solutions provide energy efficiency by using high-density, lower-power VMs enabling our customers to scale their digital transformations sustainably by optimizing space, reducing power consumption, and lowering cooling and maintenance costs. Nfina is taking a leadership role in doing what it takes to tackle climate change.

Nfina has been carbon neutral for our operations since opening in 2012.