IT admins and their organizations often find it challenging to choose between a cloud or on-premises solution. While there are pros and cons to adopting either approach, when it comes to monitoring, here are some reasons why the on-premises approach is a winner.
Security:
It's the responsibility of organizations to protect their users' and their own data. Cloud models can be threatened by data security and data loss issues because of their vulnerability to distributed denial-of-service (DDos) and privacy attacks. There are plenty of good examples about security and data privacy issues worldwide. The worse part is that organizations sometimes aren't aware of the attack until months later. Some organizations, especially those in the financial, medical, government, and education sectors, have chosen to implement an on-premises solution for infrastructure and application monitoring features, fearing data security issues in the cloud.
Better Control:
Implementing effective security measures is vital for controlling an organization's data. Since 100 percent of the data is retained on-premises, organizations can monitor and control who has access to different layers of data, and detect unusual activity or unauthorized access immediately.
Compliance:
Vendors today are required to comply with some form of regulatory control, irrespective of their industries. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) are examples of these regulations. With an on-premises solution, since the data is held locally, the user organization can remain compliant by following a strict process. While with cloud vendors, the responsibility lies with the third-party provider or regional partner to ensure all compliance requirements are met and the data are protected. Organizations need to be cautious with extremely sensitive data as violation of regulations invites enormous penalties.
Latency:
Cloud solutions require seamless communication between end-user devices and cloud servers at all times. However, movement of large volumes of data introduces a lot of latency, limiting the speed of seamless data transfer. In large organizations that transfer hundreds of gigabytes of data to and from the cloud application, this becomes a major hurdle.
Scalability:
A common misconception about on-premises monitoring solutions is its limitation when it comes to scalability. Cloud solutions often have huge scalability potential, but most on-premises vendors also offer distributed offerings which offer enormous scalability and flexibility in controlling individual on-premises instances through a centralized console. An enhanced on-premises solution is often useful when organizations need to monitor application performance from branch offices across geographies.
Coverage:
On-premises tools are often said to have a limited scope of monitoring, usually either infrastructure monitoring or application performance monitoring. While most on-premises solutions are best for SNMP-based infrastructures and IT resource monitoring without any need for complex agents, solutions like ManageEngine Applications Manager offer infrastructure, application performance, as well as digital experience monitoring from a single console. Most on-premises vendors offer comprehensive performance monitoring for applications hosted on-premises, in the cloud, and even in hybrid environments, making them ideal for every ecosystem.
Safe Updates:
Installing feature updates, patches, or upgrading your product version are some aspects where on-premises solutions require manual intervention when compared to cloud solutions which automate these tasks. Any vulnerability or bug can be contagious and can affect thousands of users simultaneously causing catastrophic consequences. However, in a local installation, these upgrades can be safely applied and any vulnerability that results can be immediately addressed by reverting the change or applying another patch. Also, on-premises set-ups allow vendors to develop custom patches to address unique incidents.
Summary:
While both cloud and on-premises solutions have pros and cons, the final decision depends entirely on an organization's requirements and objectives with respect to IT monitoring. If data security and control are fundamental aspects to your business, an on-premises monitoring tool should be your solution of choice.