Don’t write-off data centres yet.

The death of the Data Centre has been greatly exaggerated.

The cloud was supposed to kill private data centres. In fact, Gartner even published an article back in 2019 that proclaimed, “The Data Centre Is (Almost) Dead”. The premise of that piece was that by 2025, 80% of enterprises would have shut down their traditional data centres and migrated to the cloud.

On the surface, that prediction seemed to bear out. After all, the cloud is everywhere today, right? It certainly is. However, rumours of the data centre’s death have been greatly exaggerated, and while Gartner is often dead-on about many things, the organisation seems to have missed the mark by a wide margin this time.

The Data Centre is alive, well, and thriving.

Yes, there has been a lot of interest in moving from on-premises data centres to cloud options. However, it’s important to understand that this is not the only trend to watch. The traditional data centre is once more growing in popularity as the shortcomings of the cloud and the benefits of on-premises solutions become more apparent. In fact, Data Centre World’s State of the Data Centre report highlighted some very interesting facts:

• 58% reported a trend away from the public cloud and toward colocation or private data centres.
• 48% of respondents noted they would be building new data centre space in the next 12 to 36 months.

Those are informative trends that tell us very clearly that not only is the data centre alive and well, but many organisations are finding that the cloud simply doesn’t live up to its hype.

Problems with the Cloud.

Cloud-based solutions are meant to be agile, fast, customisable, and deliver significantly better costs over traditional data centres. However, the truth is something else completely, at least for a sizable percentage of organisations.

More than half of companies are hybrid anyway.

Over 50% of organisations take a hybrid-first approach, according to the 2019 RightScale State of the Cloud Report. How does that impact the situation? Understand that a hybrid cloud is a combination of public cloud and private data centre functionality. In other words, these organisations actually take a private-first approach. So, while there is a substantial number of organisations moving to the cloud, it’s not quite the wholesale defection from data centres that some would have the world believe.

Security Concerns.

Yes, cloud security has evolved considerably in recent years. However, has it done so enough to mitigate the worst threats? Given the incredible jump in cyberattacks we’ve seen in 2021, from the Colonial Gas debacle to the meat industry cyberattack and everything in between, we can clearly see that cloud-based systems are inherently at risk. In fact, that’s one of the primary reasons for organisations leaving the cloud in the first place.

It’s not just about attacks, either. Recall that the very nature of cloud infrastructure is so that data can be accessed at any time and from anywhere as exposed data travels on the open internet it becomes vulnerable to theft or infection by malware. There is also the chance of accidental access simply due to the way cloud providers operate (they manage data for multiple clients within the same cloud environment). Simply put, if you are even the least bit concerned about security and data safety, the cloud is not the right place for your organisation.

Downtime.

Downtime is a reality for both on-premises data centres and cloud environments. However, with private data centres, you (or your support provider) are in control. With cloud providers, you lack any control over downtime and are unable to implement any of your own mitigation strategies to limit or prevent those occurrences. For those not convinced that downtime is an issue, consider the number of times in 2021 and 2022 that Amazon Web Services and/or Cloud Flare went down, leaving businesses around the world in the lurch.

Customisation.

From internal apps to customer-facing programs, everything must be customised to suit your brand’s specific requirements. Unfortunately, many cloud providers offer little to no customisation, meaning that you could be stuck conforming to workflows at odds with your organisation, or even a lack of differentiation in key areas.

The benefits of on-premises data centres.

The cloud offers agility and time-to-market that are hard to find with on-premises data centres. However, there are some important benefits of traditional data centres that cannot be found with cloud-based solutions at all.

Data Volume.

Do you need to transfer large amounts of data to and from the cloud regularly? If so, chances are good you’ll experience a significant amount of lag, which will affect your processes, productivity, and even profitability.

Security.

We’ve already highlighted the significant shortcomings of the cloud in terms of security. On-premises data centres are not hacker-proof, but they are much more secure than cloud-based options. They are also much easier to safeguard in terms of who has access to what information, and you have complete control over threat mitigation strategies.

Scalability.

The cloud is touted for its scalability, and it does make it possible to scale services and software relatively easily. However, it is harder to scale things like storage, ingress, egress, and latency. An on-premises data centre can actually reduce the costs of data storage over time while providing ultra-low latency for your applications and ensuring easy access to data without having to worry about additional monthly fees.

Oversight.

The cloud is very good at decentralising things. That’s fine in some instances, but it can lead to a lack of oversight and governance with each department “doing its own thing”. While promising to democratise data and eliminate silos, the cloud can actually create greater inefficiencies. With an on-premises data centre, oversight is simpler, and you can more easily cut bloat when you find it.

Is the cloud right for you?

The cloud is here to stay, whether we like it or not. However, it is not a panacea for every business out there. Simply put, some organisations need the advantages only available through an on-premises data centre or a hybrid approach that combines the best of cloud technology with the reliability, control, and security of on-site data centres.

How can Support 247 help with your Data Centre needs?

If you want to find out about how Support 247 can help your company with its Data Centre needs through either helping it grow as your business changes or with flexible support contracts, please contact us here.