Cloud vs On-premise - that is the question which is very often on the table at the time a company is renewing its IT infrastructure or when developing its IT environment. IT directors and IT partners often oppose these two concepts, a little like binary language, 0 or 1 but never both, putting the advantages and disadvantages of each solution on the table.
However, this is forgetting that the Cloud, even though it is revolutionary, and, personally speaking, represents the future of infrastructure, is not the solution for everything and does not meet everyone's needs. Some companies can never have a 100% Cloud solution, because their business prevents them from doing so, because the law does not allow them, or because their software excludes it.
However, the Cloud has this strength of being able to be combined with an existing infrastructure or to replace part of the infrastructure. This is what is generally called a hybrid Cloud approach.
There are quite a few benefits to this model. The four most important of these are:
- To run applications where they are most effective and best suited
- This model can suit any type of business, whatever its size.
- Critical applications can be kept in-house and full control remains in the hands of the company
- This model enables a step-by-step approach towards a 100% Cloud solution
At EASI, the approach is not to pick either a Cloud or an on-premise infrastructure. This is the reason why our hardware business team is not split between these two worlds. The advantage of this will be the ability to analyse the client's needs and requirements and to be able to offer them the best solution.
We have recent experience of this. The infrastructure of one of our customers, active in the printing world, was coming to the end of its life. The solution which the client wanted was to migrate to the Cloud. At EASI, we knew the client's context and business. One point quickly revealed itself to be critical: the quantity of data passing through their bandwidth. In effect, they receive files every day from some of the biggest distributors in order to print their brochures. The risk for the whole of the network to slow down was enormous.
After a brainstorming session between EASI's Cloud experts and the customer, we quickly agreed to put a hybrid Cloud solution in place. What have the benefits of this solution been for the client?
- The client's wish to put a Cloud solution in place has been maintained since all of its administrative department (encompassing accounting, human resources, general management etc.) has been migrated to the Cloud
- The risks of a slowdown have been avoided by installing a local server entirely dedicated to receiving and managing large files for the operations department.
In conclusion, don't systematically pit Cloud and on-premise infrastructure against each other, think about using the best of both when your business needs it.
