On-Premise vs Cloud: Is There A Hybrid Alternative?

19 June 2024

Are you an IT professional struggling between the control of on-premise solutions and the flexibility of the cloud? The good news is, you don’t have to compromise.

This article will explore the pros and cons of both on-premise and public cloud solutions, and then introduce you to a powerful hybrid alternative: edge cloud. Specifically, we’ll delve into how this hybrid solution can address the limitations of traditional approaches and provide businesses like yours with the best of on-premise and public cloud.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

On-Premise vs. Cloud Solutions: We’ll compare the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, including factors like cost, scalability, security, and maintenance.
The Hybrid Cloud Advantage: Discover how edge cloud computing services combine the performance and control of on-premise with the scalability and cost-effectiveness of the cloud.
Added Benefits For Your Business: Explore how SPTel’s edge cloud solution can address challenges related to latency, data sovereignty, IT infrastructure management, and disaster recovery.

Whether you’re deploying latency-sensitive applications, managing multiple sites, or have growing IoT needs, this article will help you make informed decisions about your cloud infrastructure.

On-Premise vs Cloud Solutions

On Premise Private Cloud VS Public Cloud Providers

On-Premise Private Cloud

An on-premise cloud system is a type of cloud computing where the hardware and software that make up the cloud infrastructure are located within the organisation’s own data centre or office, rather than being hosted by a third-party cloud provider. This allows the organisation to maintain full control and ownership over the cloud environment.

Pros
Full Control	Since you own the infrastructure when it comes to a private cloud, this allows for customisation with full access to control resource allocation, network settings, and software installation.
Robust Security	Your IT team can ensure that resources are not shared with other businesses, and data is kept behind a firewall or other cybersecurity measures to reduce the risk of security breaches.

Cons
Cost	When you manage on-premise infrastructure, this also means you are responsible for high capital expenditures (CAPEX) to acquire, maintain, and upgrade the physical facility.
Need Ongoing Maintenance	Your equipment will require periodic refreshes and ongoing hardware maintenance, especially since IT infrastructure is subject to end of life (EOL), in which your equipment may become outdated/obsolete.
Limited Scalability	On-premise systems will have a fixed resource capacity. This means purchasing more servers every time you want to scale your resources.
Managed Expertise Required	You will require a skilled in-house IT team to manage networking, data security, and systems administration, on top of the hassle of overseeing multiple equipment.
Potential Data Loss	Usually lacks backup and disaster recovery features that help prevent data loss due to hardware malfunctions, threats, or user errors. To prevent this, your IT team will have to perform back ups at an offsite location.

Public Cloud

A public cloud is a type of cloud computing where a third-party provider offers computing resources, such as storage, processing power, and software, over the internet. These resources are shared among multiple users, but each user’s data and applications are kept separate and secure.

Pros
Cost-Effective	Cloud applications are often on a pay-as-you-go basis. Businesses also do not need to invest in infrastructure or specialised hardware and software upfront.
Scalability	Public clouds are highly scalable, allowing businesses to easily increase or decrease resource usage based on their needs.
Maintenance	The provider will handle maintenance tasks like software hosting, hardware purchases, security patches, updates, and new feature introductions.

Cons
Higher application latency	There can be delays in application responsiveness, slower loading times and reduced performance.
Surprise Costs	You may incur additional costs for chargeable partner services, data transfer, or if resource usage increases significantly.
Security Concerns	Public clouds are shared infrastructures, raising security issues due to shared tools, hardware, and software. This poses risks for sensitive data and industries with strict compliance requirements.

The Alternative: Hybrid Cloud Solution

Hybrid of On Premise and Cloud Systems

So far, we’ve covered on-premise and public clouds—and they both have their own benefits and drawbacks. Instead of forcing a choice between these two options, we present a more versatile solution: SPTel’s edge cloud computing solution, a hybrid approach that combines the strengths of both on-premise and public cloud models.

Here’s how our solution tackles common issues with on-premise & public cloud:

Factor	Product Benefits
Cost	Lower total cost of ownership (TCO): Remove the need to acquire physical infrastructure and expertise from an in-house IT professional. Lower upfront costs: Move from a CAPEX to OPEX model. In other words, rather than incurring hefty expenses to acquire assets for an on-premise cloud, you can adopt our pay-as-you-use model, with flexible contract terms and no data transfer fees.
Scalability	Unlimited flexibility: Get the scalability to add/remove resources. Customised: We can tailor each solution to the individual needs of each business with optional add-ons.
Cost	Data Sovereignty and Compliance: A report by Illumio shows that more than 50% of data breaches in Singapore originate from the cloud. With SPTel, we ensure strong cloud practices by housing our solution in a secured Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) in Singapore only. On top of that, we also diversify how your data is protected and where it is located.
Technical Expertise	Managed Services: You can free up time & resources when you outsource the hardware management and maintenance to us. Professional Expertise: We provide a one-stop service support for connectivity & compute needs. Read more: Top 5 Benefits of Outsourcing IT Support: Why Companies Do It

Let Our Certified IT Experts Design, Deploy, & Manage Your Cloud

SPTel Edge Cloud Computing

With SPTel Edge Cloud, you get the best of both worlds—the performance of an on-premise system combined with the flexibility and scalability of public cloud.

On top of that, here’s what our solution offers:

Disaster Recovery: Multiple edge clouds that act as a backup for one another.
Better Application Performance: Ultra-low latency of < 1ms with 4 edge zones distributed across Singapore
Reduces IT Footprint: Eliminate the need to own, manage, and maintain physical equipment.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service: On-demand access to powerful physical server infrastructure at predictable operational costs. Avoid the noisy neighbour effect from over resource virtualisation in a public cloud environment.
Unified Cloud Management Portal: Manage your resources across multiple clouds via a single, unified self-service console.

For CTOs and IT managers, you can get more information about our Edge Cloud Computing Solution or reach out to us for any queries.