Data is the key today, and there is no doubt whatsoever about that. With the development of technology in the last few decades, the amount of data that needs to be stored has increased exponentially. Earlier, data used to be stored in a traditional data center, but the idea of cloud data centers has taken over in today’s world and has been gaining increasing popularity.
To understand what makes cloud data centers popular, it is worth looking into its differences with traditional data centers.
The first crucial difference between traditional and cloud data centers is the hardware location. Traditional data centers have all their hardware on the premises of the data center. These traditional data centers can have a few desktop computers along with the room being climate-controlled. An in-house IT team manages these traditional data centers. This team of IT professionals does put an additional cost overhead on the company. Now in a cloud data center, the setup remains the same, as the data is stored in traditional devices. But these devices are spread over different locations and the cloud data center is managed by third-party organizations. And the stakeholders of a company whose data is stored generally do not get to see the hardware.
There are other fundamental differences besides the one mentioned above. Let us find them out below.
- Level of security – Any organization clearly understands that the security of the data is the most important aspect, so many organizations still prefer to have their in-house data center. This ensures that they have complete control over the security of their data, and do not need to depend on third-party services for data protection. When it comes to cloud data centers, the company has to depend on the third-party service providers who are providing the data center with its requirements for data security. It is of course important to mention that all reputed cloud service providers now take the issue of security with utmost importance so generally there is hardly any need to worry for businesses regarding security with cloud data centers.
- Cost of installation and maintenance – Building a traditional data center is time-consuming and cost-heavy for any business. It requires a great deal of planning to start with, and then there are additional expenses involved. The planning needs to take into account the initial amount of data that the company intends to store. Apart from in-depth planning, the initial investments are also quite hefty, which include procuring state-of-the-art hardware and installing security features. There are a lot of auxiliary investments, associated with a traditional data center, including costs for HVAC and administrator costs. On the other hand, in the case of cloud data centers, customers do not need to make any upfront payments. Furthermore, the plans that are offered by the cloud service providers are generally very straightforward and transparent. The customers pay for only the resources that they are using. This reduces the need for a major upfront investment. The need for accounting also comes down considerably, and the customer can also be at peace with the software requirements because the service provider keeps installing all related updates, and more.
- Scalability of the data centers – Traditional data centers are not as easily scalable. And when it comes to the expansion of infrastructure, it becomes a pretty costly affair. But it is just the opposite in the case of cloud data centers, which are easily scalable. It is a crucial benefit that cloud data centers provide over traditional data centers. Resources in cloud data centers are provided on demand. When there is a greater demand for resources, the cloud data center can provide it from its pool of resources in real-time. It helps the data center to keep functioning no matter what the need for resources may be. Hence, we can safely say that cloud data centers are more convenient.
- Failure-proof architecture – Cloud-based data centers come with a failure-proof architecture compared to traditional ones because of their decentralized structure. More often than not, data is stored in more than one server as copies. If at any point in time, there occurs a glitch in one server, the cloud data center seamlessly provides another copy of the data from another server. This structure or architecture makes cloud datacenters extremely robust.
Conclusion
Understanding how traditional data centers differ from cloud-based data centers is crucial to select the most suitable one for a company. The requirements of each company are different, and there is no one particular solution that suits all.
However, in today’s world, with every company opting for future-proof and scalable data resources, it is needless to say that cloud-based data centers have a substantial edge over traditional ones.
