Is on-premises private cloud an optimal choice for your organization?

Organizations are adapting cloud solutions at a rapid rate. They are focusing on advanced and sophisticated cloud strategies and solutions.
The following chart indicates the rate at which cloud solutions are accelerating.

Source: Worldwide Cloud IT Infrastructure market Forecast (2015 to 2020)
There are multiple cloud solutions available. You can choose from public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud solutions. Private cloud solutions can be on-premises private clouds or hosted private clouds. Studies conducted by IDC also indicate that around 66 percent of organizations were planning to use or used on-premises private cloud solutions in 2017.  So, let us understand more about on-premises cloud so that it helps you evaluate whether it is an apt cloud solution for your organization.

One of the most important considerations before you opt for a private cloud is the required capital. You must purchase the required equipment to operate and manage the cloud, which include expenses such as salaries, software upgrades, and maintenance. It is advisable to analyze these costs and check if it works out for your business.
Following are some of the reasons that can help you determine the need of an on-premises cloud:

• Complete ownership of intellectual property

By using an on-premises private cloud setup, you can warrant that your software has full proprietary rights. When you are opting for a public cloud vendor and develop software through Software as a Service(SaaS), Platform as a Service(PaaS), or Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS), you might not get complete ownership of the software.

• Regulatory compliance

If your company has specific requirements such as storing data that has to abide with certain laws and complies with some regulations, then a private cloud is the best option. For example:
Health care companies in the US have specific security requirements to save customer data, as specified in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Also, to prevent data breach, you must ensure that the cloud setup has strict security considerations, which are implemented and maintained appropriately. With an on-premises private cloud, you can deploy appropriate security measures that match your requirements and with an expert team you can enhance and maintain it on a regular basis.

• Control over your setup

As on-premises cloud setup provides you all the rights over your data, the infrastructure, and resources, you can customize the components to suit your needs.  As an on-premise cloud arrangement does not allow other users to share the resources, you have complete control over the entire setup and can upgrade it accordingly, based on your business requirements.
Some applications require specific requirements such as hardware and configuration. Although a public cloud provider might provide you the required options, they would limit your options, which can hinder your business needs. So, a private cloud setup can be the best option in scenarios where you have special requirements.
While an on-premises cloud setup has some advantages, it is a huge responsibility. Activities such as deploying, upgrading, maintaining, monitoring, and managing security arrangements must be done regularly.  These activities require expert IT personnel and resources to ensure that it is fully functional and works at its optimal best.
While the pointer discussed in this blog is just the tip of an iceberg with respect to on-premises cloud solutions, an in-depth study based on your business requirements can help you analyze whether you need an on-premise cloud setup or any other cloud-based solution.

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