Most businesses now rely on cloud-computing systems and software to manage their data. They don’t have physical drives anymore where they store the information they collect from their customers and clients. However, data breaches happen all the time that will make one question the reliability and practicality of depending on cloud computing alone. Companies, especially the big ones that hold a lot of data, still need physical data centers. While they are not required to establish one themselves, they need to choose a service provider that has a secure physical data center.
When choosing a service provider, make sure of its professionalism and legitimacy. One of the ways to do that is to check its permits and licenses. Do not sign a contract unless you’ve checked out the necessary documents proving that the service provider has the professional capacity to deliver what your business needs.
Aside from the necessary licenses, you should check the physical infrastructure of the data center, too. How is the equipment being housed? Does the data center have the right server room flooring? Data centers need a raised flooring, so the cables can run under them. It also prevents the equipment from getting too heated up that it will end up crashing and impacting a lot of business processes. Once you are sure of the stability of the physical data center, that’s when you can sign that agreement.
Control
One of the most important things that businesses must retain over their data is control. When data is on the cloud, the company is at the mercy of the cloud service provider. If the service provider experiences delays, crashes, breaches, and oversights, their clients will suffer. How, then, will you access the information entrusted to you by your clients and customers?
Businesses must have some level of control over their data. Although the cloud is an advantage, it comes with drawbacks, too. Without physical data centers, businesses will rely on the capabilities of the cloud server. Having access to a data center will put the business owner’s concerns at rest.
Reliability
Even the best cloud platform only offers a 99.99% uptime service-level agreement (SLA). This means that for about four minutes every month, the cloud will be down, and you cannot access your data and information. In reality, that might be more than four minutes. This is a reality that businesses that depend on the cloud have to face every day. You will notice this when you try to access company data during downtime. There are moments when you have to wait a full minute for the data to download. This will affect the reliability of your performance.
However, when you are connected to a physical data center, you can expect a 100% uptime SLA. The data center has an almost perfect level of security. And when something goes wrong, information technology (IT) experts can attend to them almost immediately.
Applications
Transferring all data and applications to the cloud may not work for companies with an already existing IT infrastructure. It will work, though, for companies that are starting their businesses from scratch. Those with an existing system will have a hard time converting their applications from one that’s linked to a physical data center to one on the cloud. This will create a kind of gap wherein some applications will not be able to work.
Predictability and Affordability
Cloud providers can change their pricing structure and scheme in an instant. Most of the time, there’s no way to migrate these data into usable formats. The companies will then be forced to pay for the higher maintenance fee instead of transitioning or transferring data to another cloud provider.
On the other hand, a physical data center can also increase its price point. But because there’s an actual server being rented there, they cannot do anything if the business wants to take that server and transfer it somewhere else. That’s why physical data centers must provide quality services at a price point that both parties agree on.
IT Support
The level of IT support a physical data center can get is second to none. If something goes wrong with your drive in the middle of the night, someone from the data center can physically check what’s wrong with the hardware. This is the level of attention that businesses need. It is not the same with cloud computing where IT experts have to find what’s wrong using codes and languages that only they understand. It takes a longer time to see if there’s a problem when there’s no physical equipment or infrastructure to check.
Cloud computing is a core component of almost every business. That is true. But it is also true that reliance on it has been shaky. It has not fully integrated itself yet on the digital transformation that all businesses are experiencing right now. While some of your data should be on the cloud, your reliance on it should not be 100%.
