What’s the ideal data storage choice—colocation, on-premise, or cloud? If you had asked this a couple of years back, you would have gotten some pretty definitive answers from hardcore fans of each of these options.
Today, things are more nuanced. There is no clear winner across the board. But there are clear winners for different scopes and different applications.
Hybrid Cloud and Why Companies Adopt it Massively
Hybrid cloud storage is not new. In fact, Gartner predicted it would be the preferred option back in 2017, adding that 90% of companies would adopt it by 2020.
A public cloud architecture can be flexible enough for some applications but also leave a lot to be desired for others. Take uptime, for instance. Popular platforms like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, or Amazon AWS advertise a 99.99% uptime.
In theory, this is a virtually flawless uptime. In practice, however, it can lead to hours of downtime, which, in some cases, can cost businesses millions of dollars.
Moreover, the public cloud has some operational transparency issues. An IT specialist has virtually no control over the back-end infrastructure, which leaves it open to countless operational and security risks. If you store sensitive data in the public cloud, you will have very little control over authentication, automatization, or access control. Thus, your infrastructure will not be compliant with certain security protocols.
This lack of transparency also makes the public cloud unsuitable for legacy applications, which typically need stable infrastructure.
Consequently, private clouds, on-premise storage, and colocation have become popular models for storing sensitive data, legacy applications, and more.
Does this mean you should completely ditch the public cloud? As always, it depends—there is no one-size-fits-all in data storage.
The public cloud can work well for storing non-sensitive and non-critical data. For everything else, you will want to look at other alternatives.
Finding the Right Balance with a Hybrid Cloud Approach
A hybrid cloud approach can offer you the best of both worlds: the reduced costs of the public cloud (when possible) and the advanced security and control options of the private cloud.
Control is the main benefit here. Instead of relying on a third-party provider for all your data and infrastructure, you can keep all your applications and data behind your own firewall and still leverage new technology from the public cloud for deployment.
It all boils down to flexibility: storage in one place and deployment in another is just an example. You can build your own infrastructure and data storage models as you see fit.
While the hybrid approach does solve a lot of problems, it also comes with challenges of its own. For example, not all applications are suitable for cloud storage and deployment. Plus, setting up and managing a private cloud environment requires time, investment, and expertise.
This is where colocation can swoop in and save the day. In fact, this is one of the reasons why colocation adoption is increasing constantly alongside cloud adoption—although, you’d intuitively say they should compete with each other.
How Colocation Supports a Hybrid Cloud Approach
A lot of companies have migrated from cloud to colocation (and a lot more continue to do so). But this doesn’t mean that they have moved all their assets away from the cloud.
Colocation allows you to deploy custom infrastructure over which you have complete control. The beauty of this model is that you can do all this without the massive investment you’d need to build and maintain an on-premise data center.
In other words, you don’t need to relinquish control over your infrastructure just to fit a tight budget. Colocation comes at the fraction of the cost of on-premise maintenance and offers the same control over your infrastructure.
More importantly, colocation can help you leverage the benefits of hybrid cloud by providing the optimal environment for high-quality connectivity among on-premise, private, and public cloud infrastructure. At the same time, colocation offers you a secure environment for your data and your systems.
Not Sure if Colocation Fits into Your Hybrid Cloud Strategy? We’ll Help You Figure it out!
The security and increased control of colocation, combined with the on-demand nature of cloud solutions and their flexibility allows you to be more agile and more responsive to the ever-changing market and business needs.
Our elite facility is designed to offer you state-of-the-art technology (such as premium cooling features), flexible pricing, and truly scalable colocation options.
However, we know that there is no single solution for every business out there. If you’re unsure about how or if colocation would fit into your strategy, we’re just an email or a phone call away! Our IT infrastructure experts can help you decide if colocation is right for you or if you should look for another approach.