In today’s day and age, data is considered to be one of the most important resources that a business needs to have. Whether you’re a restaurant chain operating a few establishments or a pharmaceutical laboratory working with scientists across the country, you need to make your data available as soon as you have it.
To accomplish this, companies need to understand the advantages of going for cloud services over on-site hosting. That being said, no two cloud solutions are equal.
Among the most well-known providers is Amazon Web Services, which currently has the majority market share at 32.4% of the cloud computing market share as of February 2020. Following it is Microsoft Azure at 5.3%, with Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud trailing at 1.8% and 1.6%, respectively.
Safe to say, if you are going for cloud hosting, the best choice is to go with AWS. Here are four advantages of going for AWS cloud solutions over on-site hosting solutions.
1. Costs
The most obvious advantage of going for cloud hosting is not having to shoulder the total cost of ownership. Going for on-site hosting means that aside from the cost of acquiring the hardware and software, there are a lot of other costs associated with putting up and maintaining your own server.
To put up your own server, you’ll have to pay for housing, energy, staffing, and maintenance costs. Only the first one isn’t a recurring cost—meaning it’s a continual investment just to keep it up and running.
Before you can get your own server online, you’ll first need to build a facility that will house your data centre. This can’t be just a simple room with a roof either—server computers radiate a lot of heat that must be dissipated, which means you’ll need to plan for ventilation and air conditioning.
Aside from that, the room needs to be impervious to weather changes and should be outfitted with emergency features, such as fire suppression systems. Only then can you proceed to build your own server.
Meanwhile, companies who use AWS cloud web hosting solutions will only have to worry about one thing: the monthly subscription fee. As long as a stable and fast internet connection is available, your cloud resources will remain up and running as early as day one.
2. Scalability
With an AWS cloud hosting solution, you pay only for what you need. This means that if you need to scale down due to business considerations, you can immediately do so. This helps you cut down on costs to free up resources in times of financial instability.
The convenience of scalability also applies if your business were to need more resources, where the only change would be the increase in monthly fees.
This type of flexibility is almost impossible with having an on-site system that comes with fixed costs. Instead of freeing up resources at a meaningful level, scaling down only incurs even more additional costs. In that same vein, depending on the magnitude of the increase, scaling up your on-site resources would incur significantly higher costs as well.
3. Reliability
Businesses that rely on their online presence will need a reliable host to back them up. After all, an hour of downtime will spell disaster for your operations—especially if it’s your main platform for connecting with your customers.
AWS cloud solutions shine in this regard because of automatic back-up protocols. This means that even if a chunk of physical storage maintained by an AWS hosting company is compromised, backup data from somewhere else can still be used to keep your data up and available in the cloud.
While this is possible with an on-site storage facility, the costs would likely be astronomical to pull off. You would need to create additional storage facilities elsewhere, and pay for the same costs as well.
4. Security
Contrary to popular belief, some of the biggest threats to data storage facilities are physical hazards, like theft, fires, earthquakes, and floods. This means that in addition to keeping up with the latest security protocols in digital file handling, you’ll also need to invest in physical security to maintain and protect them.
Meanwhile, AWS cloud hosting solutions will give you the same robust security features, whether you’re a small startup business or a Fortune 500 company! Because Amazon Web Services’ core business is making your data safe and available, they are likely to have better physical security measures than any on-site premises will ever have.
Conclusion
To be fair, cloud solutions are not for everyone. These are best for companies that operate in areas where there is a fast and reliable internet connection that can be used to upload and download data from a server somewhere else around the world. An on-site data facility would be much more useful in rural places where connectivity may be limited or restricted.
That being said, the advantages of cloud solutions over on-sight hosting cannot be overstated. It is much more cost-efficient, secure, scalable, and secure. This means that if you have the required speeds, AWS cloud hosting solutions are the right match for you!
Are you looking for a cloud hosting provider in Australia? iNode Cloud offers fast and reliable cloud storage solutions that are built on Australia-based Amazon Web Servers. Our services include daily account and database backups, 99.99% uptime, and 24/7 support. Contact us today to learn more!
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