Debates on cloud vs on-premises storage solutions have been around for a while. To help those of you who are looking to understand what factors you should consider before choosing your storage solution, Leanne Tomlin, Marketing Director at Perifery, hosted a webinar where experts from Perifery—Seth Cohen, Peter Watling, and George Maddocks—shared some critical insights.
In the webinar, the panel explored the key factors driving organizations to select cloud, on-prem, or hybrid storage solutions and how these choices impact scalability, security, and collaboration. In this blog, we will have a look at the key points discussed by the experts during the webinar.
Key Factors Driving the Cloud, On-prem, or Hybrid Trends
Leanne started the conversation by asking the panel about the key factors that media and entertainment (M&E) organizations consider while choosing among cloud, on-prem, or hybrid storage. Pete pointed to price, security, and scalability as three critical factors. He went on to say that cloud’s pay-as-you-go OPEX model is very appealing as it limits upfront costs, but several on-prem solution providers have also pivoted over to a subscription model, quite like cloud. Security remains a concern with the cloud, as per Pete. He pointed out that there is a common misconception in the market that the cloud, by default, maintains one copy of the data stored, while often that’s not the reality.
Seth agreed with Pete’s point on cloud’s pricing being very appealing. But he went to add that for most businesses, the cloud operational expenses eventually catch up and nullify the advantage provided by the low initial costs. He added that a hybrid model where important assets requiring strong security and control are retained on-premises while colder long-term assets are stored in the cloud is a good option for most organizations.
George pointed out that the cloud solutions are quite mature now and offer significant benefits in terms of collaboration, scalability, etc. But the cloud invariably tends to bring in additional complexities as they are essentially just rented machines. “The cloud can do a huge number of things that you would traditionally associate with on-prem, but it's definitely more complicated to do them on someone else's machines, which you are renting, which is what the cloud is, right?” said George. He went on to add that the industry has matured in understanding cloud benefits and is evaluating the cloud vs on-premises question on a case-by-case basis, which is why hybrid is becoming the norm.
Are businesses really turning their back on cloud solutions?
The next point of discussion for the panel was around the recent media-reported trends on businesses turning their back on cloud solutions and reverting to on-prem.
Pete was of the view that customers are still working extensively with cloud and will continue to do so. He opined that the cloud is the norm now, and every M&E business uses cloud solutions in some way or another, as the cloud remains the best option for several media workflows. Pete went on to mention that there are many cloud solutions outside the big three public clouds that do not charge any fees for accessing or retrieving your content. He added that being a completely cloud-native organization is not a practical option, but being cloud-first is a route that can work for many organizations. Pete also drew an interesting analogy between buying cloud solutions and buying a house—"no matter the budget, there are always going to be compromises when you buy a house or a cloud storage” he said.
Seth pointed out that some large corporations reducing their public cloud usage might have grabbed the headlines, but cloud will continue to be an integral part of media workflows. He reminded us that with AI penetrating into M&E workflows, computational costs could quickly ramp up while working with cloud solutions.
George felt that the excitement around cloud was at its peak during the COVID times, and since then “a practical tactical adjustment” has happened. Business leaders have understood that while the cloud does have great capabilities, there are some limitations, and so going fully cloud is neither a feasible nor the best option.
Cost implications of transitioning among cloud, on-prem and hybrid models
Leanne then shifted the focus of the discussion towards the potential cost implications of transitioning among cloud, on-prem, and hybrid models.
George discussed how on-prem, despite the high initial costs, provides customers with the benefit of predictability. He mentioned that the cloud solutions’ pay-for-what-you-use model is far from predictable. There are customers who prefer the access-based cloud OPEX and the variability that comes with it. But George opined that the customers often tend to prefer the predictability of on-prem solutions to the variability of cloud solutions. Seth and Pete were also in agreement with this point of view. Pete went on to add that the cloud is not for those who are seeking a high degree of transparency, predictability, and cost-effectiveness.
Addressing security and compliance risks
The last question Leanne threw to the panel was about how customers can better handle the security and compliance risks.
Pete suggested that the cloud customers must look at their service level agreements (SLA) from the vendors and understand critical details like where their data is stored, who has access to their data, and how many copies of the data are maintained. Seth added that the reason why the hybrid model is more prevalent now is because businesses want to exercise strong control over their data—at least a part of it.
George discussed how the auditing process can be difficult with cloud solutions and mentioned that it is important to retain control over critical data on premises. He added that we are past the “cloud hype cycle,” and businesses have realized that a hybrid model would work best for the long term.
Pete concluded by re-emphasizing his suggestion that businesses should consider options outside of the top public cloud vendors while looking at cloud solutions, as those options tend to offer better control and security than public clouds.
Learn more
To learn more about how Perifery is supporting the media industry with storage solutions that are tailored for modern-day media workflows, explore our case studies. If you missed the live webinar, you can watch on-demand now.
