Blog

Data centers play a crucial role in determining an organization’s carbon footprint. The company’s reliance on digital infrastructure has intensified the debate between the sustainable cloud and on-premises data centers, majorly concerning sustainability. With the increased popularity of cloud computing, the question of which sustainable data center can handle changing requirements has become more relevant. Enterprises can select one of the data centers to place their workloads in either of the data centers or take a hybrid approach.

This blog will discuss the factors you must consider while choosing a sustainable data center for your business. It will devolve into a deep analysis of both data centers’ pros and cons and explain their sustainability.

What are sustainable data centers? 

Data centers are basic facilities that provide a place to house computer systems and related components like telecommunications and storage systems. These sustainable data centers are very critical for storing, processing, and consolidating data. In addition to this, there are significant energy consumers that add to the greenhouse gas emissions. Adopting sustainable data center practices for operations is vital for reducing the environmental impact.

These green data centers use energy-efficient technologies to reduce the environmental impact and promote sustainability. These data centers use renewable energy sources, recycle water, and manage water usage efficiently. AWS cloud data centers help manage the sustainability and operations hand to hand.

What are on-premises data centers? 

An on-premises data center is a personal data center that a company operates and owns. This facility facilitates the storage of critical applications and confidential data. Companies house their own facilities and then maintain themselves. In this, the compute resources are virtualized in the same way as the public clouds. These data center energy management provide complete authority to the organizations over their infrastructure.  Traditional data centers, like dedicated facilities and office buildings, are located within the organization’s premises.

What are cloud data centers? 

Cloud data centers as sustainable data centers are the consolidation of networked computer servers that offer organizations and individuals storage and remote computing resources. Third-party service providers majorly operate this contemporary approach which provides access all over the internet. They are considered the backbone of cloud computing sustainability as they serve as a convenient model and offer on-demand access to shared configurable computing. You can rent a storage capacity, AWS cloud computing power, and the capital expenditure and maintenance needed for owning physical hardware.

Difference between the cloud and on-premises data centers     

Cloud and on-premises differ from each other on the basis of their location and management as sustainable data centers. You must be aware of their difference to choose the best data center for your business. Let’s delve into the difference between cloud and on-premises data centers:

Differences	Cloud data center	On-premises data center
Initial expenses	This model uses the subscription and pay-as-you-go model.	This data center needs major upfront investment initially.
Safety	This approach needs safety but often does not fulfill the regulatory requirements.	They offer complete authority over the systems and data.
Resource deployment	The resources are deployed and managed in the house.	The resources are managed and deployed on third-party infrastructure.
Scalability	This model automates scalability when needed without any major intervention.	This particular data center offers less agility due to space and hardware limitations.
Adherence	It does not provide complete transparency and authority to storage and usage,which hinders the compliant policies.	This offers better visibility and storage to meet the complaint policies.
Availability	This assures better prevention and downtime recovery with continuous data center energy monitoring.	It is vulnerable to single failure points and can have more downtime.

 

Pros and cons of cloud data center 

Cloud data centers’ use is increasing because of their agility and scalability. Let’s delve into the pros and cons of this sustainable data center.

Pros of the cloud data center are: 

1. Scalability and agility: To survive in this dynamic market environment, cloud data centers offer unmatchable scalability and agility. Flexibility in resource management is beneficial for fluctuating demands. It makes processing capabilities, such as computing power, storage, and bandwidth, agile.
2. Collaboration and accessibility: The sustainability in data centers allows easy access to applications and data worldwide. This facilitates collaboration and remote work. The cloud-centric tools allow easy consolidation and real-time updates, allowing team members to work effectively regardless of any physical location.
3. Cost-effectiveness: Sustainable cloud centers allow payment for only those services that they have used. This model decreases capital expenditure and shifts the financial burden to operational expenditure, which is manageable for businesses. In addition, the running and cooling of the physical servers are shifted to the cloud providers, resulting in savings.
4. Disaster recovery: The ability to distribute green energy cloud data centers is revolutionizing disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Cloud data centers allow data storage across geographically dispersed sites. They offer faster disaster recovery solutions than conventional methods. These clouds for sustainability protect vital data and ensure the business can continue operations with less downtime.

Cons of cloud data center 

The zero-emission cloud data center offers various advantages to the IT industry because of its agility, cost-effectiveness, and scalability. Here are some disadvantages of cloud data centers:

1. Uncontrolled monthly expenditure: The monthly expenditure can spike unexpectedly due to enhanced usage, bandwidth, or computing requirements.
2. High duplication costs: These renewable energy cloud data centers have high duplication costs. Users may incur high storage expenses if they store multiple copies of data across various cloud locations.
3. Limited tailoring: Cloud computing services often lack tailoring options. They are typically objective-built and do not facilitate users to fluctuate configurations to better fit their requirements.

Pros and cons of on-premises data center

On-premises data centers are a traditional approach for many companies, offering several advantages and disadvantages. Furthermore, we will discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of this sustainable data center.

Pros of the on-premises data center:

1. Customization: Owners still control the entire system as customization is very easy to handle on these premises. This complete control allows the configurations to meet specific business requirements. Teams are very well aware of what they must adhere to and the standards that suit their requirements while creating eco-friendly data centers.
2. Infrastructure visibility: Organizations need more visibility to move the sustainable cloud. Moreover, shifting to the on-premises structure means that everyone is aware of the performance levels, technology, and sustainable IT infrastructure you are using.
3. Safety: Improved security measures can be executed, which cover physical security and tailored cybersecurity standards that are essential for sensitive data. Therefore, the strict safety protocols compensate for their visibility.
4. Performance: The on-premises data centers offer low latency and high performance for secure mobile applications that demand efficient performance and significant processing data center power management.

Cons of the on-premises data center:

1. High upfront costs: Managing the high upfront costs for these green data center solutions is quite expensive for small and medium-sized industries. The future expenses of upgrading and replacing the hardware because of malfunction, obsolescence, and age make it really difficult for the expense to be managed on-premises throughout the entire life.
2. Cybersecurity: Updating the latest cybersecurity in communication networks is both expensive and challenging for most organizations.  In addition to this, the time and money required for the security equipment, constant monitoring, sustainable data center design, and training add to the expenses. Unlike cloud data centers, on-premises have to bear all expenses alone.
3. Limits accessibility: Because of their traditional approach and less flexibility, accessing these on-premises data centers can be more complex than the cloud ones. However, that will hinder collaboration and remote work.

Sustainable data centers provide organizations with control, security, and customization, making specific industries and applications. Moreover, cloud and sustainability also come with high upfront costs, scalability challenges, and maintenance responsibilities. Organizations must carefully analyse these advantages and disadvantages to determine which data center, whether it is cloud or on-premises, aligns with their operational requirements.

Fastcurve, a leading and reliable IT service provider, offers services for managing businesses’ data with various IT solutions. We also assist with app development, responsive websites, niche for online websites, and their deployment.