Cloud vs. traditional data center: Which is right for you?

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When deciding where to house essential business workloads, organizations have multiple options in three categories to choose from: in the cloud, in a traditional on-premises data center or a hybrid option.

Choosing an on-premises data center or the cloud depends on many factors, such as workload type, budget and regulatory requirements. For example, considerations including performance, changing business needs, budgets and security requirements often dictate where workloads should live, which causes IT leaders to look for the most flexible option.

Even with well-known benefits of the cloud, a 2022 IDC survey found 71% of respondents expected to partly or fully migrate public cloud workloads into a dedicated IT environment by the end of 2023. The key drivers of repatriating workloads back on premises include lowering costs, security and compliance concerns, supplier failure, latency and data gravity, and reversing poorly planned moves to the cloud.

Resource control and infrastructure management are the two main differentiators when deciding whether to put workloads in the cloud or in a traditional on-premises data center. In the cloud, the data center provider handles the upkeep and maintenance of the hardware and certain software tools, while on premises, it's all on the business. Cloud data centers partially manage the digital resources, but the customer owns the data. On premises, the business completely manages and owns the digital resources from end to end.

Each type of data center provides benefits to customers depending on their needs. Check out the considerations that can help teams decide where to move their workloads:

The following table outlines considerations for deciding whether to place workloads on premises or in the cloud:

Enterprises need to weigh whether to move or keep workloads on premises or in a cloud data center, with each option having its own advantages. Check out the pros and cons of both on-premises and cloud data centers.

To reap the benefits of both types of data centers, many organizations combine the two in a hybrid deployment. Embracing both can improve IT agility, maximize efficiency and control spending. With a hybrid plan, organizations can maintain control of sensitive assets, enjoy the flexibility of additional cloud resources, hire only a small IT team for the on-premises facility and transition workloads between the two environments at their own pace.

On-premises and cloud data centers can provide your organization with the necessary infrastructure. Your final choice will depend on your specific uses, security requirements, compliance rules and budget.