Cloud computing has become one of the hottest trends in recent years. Adoption of this solution has helped many businesses adapt to the demands of the ever-changing digital world, especially so following the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Cloud computing has gained a lot of traction and popularity, and the uptake rate is now higher as compared to a decade ago. This is mainly because Cloud computing has helped businesses respond to the growing need and demand for remote working. Recent data shows that approximately 90% of organisations, including fortune 500 companies, are now soughting after cloud services in order to support remote work.
However, some businesses are still conservative when it comes to determining where and how to house their data, especially those which are more sensitive in nature (e.g. financial data), governed by strict regulations, restricted by compliance requirements and/or those that require a great deal of control. Knowing that your data is located in a safe and secure place is what they need to give them a peace of mind. One of the most secure places where most big enterprises still prefer to house their data is their very own in-house servers and within their own premises.
Even with the rise in uptake rate of cloud computing solutions, security remains one of the primary reasons some companies still prefer sticking to storing their data on-premise. However, the downside of having to store their data on-premise is the high upfront capital and manpower cost required. So these companies may either lack the funding or the manpower to acquire and manage their own on-premise IT infrastructure.
Fortunately, this is exactly where On-Premise-as-a-Service comes in. It is an affordable alternative which comes with the required technical expertise to upkeep it.. By housing your data on-premise using the On-Premise-as-a-Service strategy, there is no more risk as you no longer need to share your storage space with other users, no need to bear the high upfront manpower and financial cost, and yet still be able to have high level of control on how your data is being stored and processed. In this article, we will go into detail discussing what exactly On-Premise-as-a-Service is and how it can benefit your business.
What Is An On-Premise-as-a-Service?
As the name suggests, On-Premise-as-a-Service means that an IT infrastructure setup is deployed & running from within the confinement of your organisation’s premises. It is a blend of the traditional on-premise IT infrastructure model with the off-premise public cloud computing model. The combination of the strengths of both models hereby created a new category called On-Premise-as-a-Service, or OPaaS for short.
OPaaS should not be mistaken for a traditional data center or IT infrastructure where a company purchases hardware and sets up a data center solely managed by its regular in-house IT team. Of course companies get to keep their precious data on-premise just like the traditional on-premise data center. But unlike a traditional on-premise data center, they don’t have to pay for the huge upfront start-up cost of procuring and installing the IT infrastructure. They only have to pay for the storage capacity they consume because the hardware, servers, software, and other equipment held on the premises are owned and managed by a third party service provider. This means upfront capital expenses, which you would incur if you had your own data center, are replaced by operating expenses. Additionally, OPaaS should not be thought of as a lease but as a service which provides storage, computing and networking, because the service provider also provides the required expertise and technical support as well. In short it provides everything you need to run your work activities with the chance to adjust the capacity of services required up or down as your business progresses.
Now that you have an idea of what an On-Premise-as-a-Service is, in the next section, we will discuss how your business can potentially benefit from an On-Premise-as-a-Service.
How Can Your Business Benefit From On Premise As a Service?
1. Customisation And Control
The ability to customise and control your data storage infrastructure is perhaps one of the strongest benefits that your business can leverage from the OPaaS solution. When you have OPaaS, your service provider provides you with your own physical IT infrastructure (typically housed in your server rooms). This gives you complete control over it and allows you to set the requirements for the system as you deem necessary for your business.. There may be scenarios when a business may require a custom solution to respond to and accommodate the ever changing and growing demands of the business, or there may be a need to improve the infrastructure as the business grows. Since your infrastructure is on a private network, your business can easily customise the system to respond to your specific needs and requirements of the business. If compared to public cloud services, you will discover that there isn’t as much spontaneity and that the solution packages may be rather generic and sometimes rather inflexible in nature. They may be different from your requirements and the scenarios your business needs. Additionally, in an OPaaS set up, your business has full control over your data and whatever that happens to it. You easily access, retain and restrict all the data.
2. Scalability
Riding on the fact that OPaaS gives the user control and a chance to customise the services, it comes together with the benefit of scalability; where businesses can alter and adjust the capacity required as a way of responding to business needs. Like public and hybrid cloud data centers, scaling up and down is still relatively easy with OPaaS. It maximises your business’ ability to meet the growing demands of your industry.
Since the OPaaS provider handles all the installation, networking, maintenance and other aspects involved in running the data center, they will have the ability to alter storage capacity, bandwidth, and other IT resources without restraints. With your instructions, they can scale up or down to respond to business and market demands. For instance, when business is slow, you could instruct the service provider to scale down to remove unnecessary expenses to keep the company’s financial health steady, and when business is booming you could opt to increase the latter to match growing operating demands. This makes OPaaS a very reliable and efficient strategy for tackling your business situations as they develop.
3. Security And Compliance
On-premise data centers mean that all security measures are implemented based on the security policies of the facility that houses the IT infrastructure. In OPaaS, while the ownership of the IT infrastructure doesn’t belong to you, they are housed in your premise and are thus subjected to the security measures implemented by your premise. Also, unlike public cloud solutions, they are disconnected and kept separated from other storage users, hence giving you the space and flexibility to further customise and enhance your security measures as you deem fit. This allows you to have full control over the access to the physical infrastructure. For instance, you could introduce the use of key cards to access the rooms, authorising only a few people from your organisation to have access to those key cards. You could also consider the use of biometrics access for sensitive data.
Unlike traditional on-premise data centers where maintenance is done by the organisation’s IT team, OPaaS’ maintenance and monitoring is fulfilled by the service providers themselves. These are usually very conversant in cyber security and have a team of expert staff who are proficient in ensuring the security of the OPaaS’ hardware and software components, and your data as well.
4. Lower Upfront Costs
As mentioned in the previous section, another main attractive benefit that the OPaaS solution offers is the lower upfront costs that you have to fork out, as compared to the traditional on-premise data center solution.
If you have a very tight capital budget, but yet still want to house your own data, the OPaaS is the way to go. That is because you don’t have to pay for the huge upfront start-up cost of procuring and installing the IT infrastructure. The hardware, servers, software, and other equipment held on the premises are owned and managed by a third party service provider.
You also do not need to hire, train and maintain a huge IT staff to manage and maintain your on-premise IT infrastructure. The service provider will be able to provide the technical expertise support that you will require.
So in short, you only have to pay for the storage capacity that you think you will need to use. This means that upfront capital expenses, which you would incur if you had your own data center, are now transformed into operating expenses that are spread out over a longer time horizon. This would definitely help out companies which have a very tight capital budget and cash flow.
5. Keeping Up With The Trend
With the constant changes happening in the digital world, it may be hard for businesses which adopt the traditional on-premise IT infrastructure solution to keep up because they may not have the in-house skill to stay on top of industry innovations, trends and inventories.
However, your business can benefit from the service, support and expertise that an OPaaS service provider has to offer. Since they run a business, they are sure to keep up with industry trends to remain competitive.
When you think about it, this is a win-win situation for both the service provider and the business. The service provider will help your business stay on top of what’s happening in the industry and also help you make use of the ever changing trends and you will be satisfied thereby helping them build their reputation. And all this can be done without having to move your data to the public cloud.
Conclusion
As the digital world keeps transforming, it is clear that businesses have to accommodate this change and leverage the benefits that it brings in order for them to thrive, remain robust and competitive in the marketplace. As a way of responding to digital transformation, a lot of companies are hopping onto the bandwagon of cloud computing users. The global COVID-19 pandemic has equally contributed to the popularity of the cloud since people want more flexibility to work from wherever they want.
Granted, incorporating cloud computing solutions is an immaculate idea for businesses especially with the pandemic amidst us, but not all companies are flexible enough to do so. They are conservative in terms of where and how to store their data and they should because it is their duty to ensure their data is secure. This is where on premise as a service comes in.
Although OPaaS involves a third party providing the service to the company, you are guaranteed ultimate security and control over your precious data since it is a private network. It offers you the convenience and cost effectiveness of cloud computing but in a private and more secure way.
To respond to the dynamic business world, more digital and cloud solutions are set to be available in the near future. That means there is room for a lot of transformation to satisfy the varying requirements of customers. To keep up with these future trends organisations should be willing to engage a trusted partner and consultant that can provide expertise in the incorporation of these trends into their OPaaS infrastructure.
At Vallous, our team of IT professionals will be able to assess and prescribe suitable data storage solutions that cater to your business IT operations needs. We offer enterprise-grade data services that you can rely on to transit your data-centric business from a traditional on-premise data centres model, to a hybrid cloud model, a full-on cloud computing model or even like the OPaaS model as we have discussed thoroughly in this article.
We are dedicated to assisting our clients in storing and protecting their data, and in keeping your enterprise network ecosystem operating at its best capacity, fueling growth and eliminating downtime, so your business can be a beneficiary, rather than a victim, of the digital ecosystem. To learn more about which solution would be most suitable for your business,, contact our in-house professionals at www.vallous.com for a complimentary consultation today!