| Azure Cloud | On-Premises |
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Payment | Azure Cloud licenses its services to businesses and manages updates and maintenance for businesses. This eliminates the pay-as-you-go model. With cloud services, you have a predictable monthly rate. | With on-premises computing, businesses have to deal with significant installation, maintenance, and configuration costs. Integrating new hardware and software may also require substantial costs.
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Customization | With Azure, you can customize many elements of cloud infrastructure, such as the user interface, customer and developer portals, and dashboards. However, you must stay within the confines of Microsoft’s policies. | With on-premises infrastructure, you can customize your IT environment to your heart’s desire. However, this level of control and customization requires that you manage the infrastructure yourself. |
Support | Azure Cloud services have rapid, 24/7 support that allows you to deal with a variety of technical issues quickly, resulting in increased uptime and better workflow. | When you encounter an issue with your physical server, you need to rely on your in-house IT or a third-party service provider to address it. This can take significant time and effort. |
Mobility and Accessibility | Cloud infrastructure gives you access to online platforms, services, and applications from any device with an internet connection. This allows you to perform work and manage your infrastructure from anywhere. | Because it’s hosted locally, on-premises infrastructure does not provide the level of accessibility that cloud services do. While you can design applications to fetch data from these servers, it’s expensive and time-consuming. |
Security | Azure cloud has significant security provisions in place that allow you to prevent, detect, and respond to threats in real time. With its advanced security protocol, you can secure your data and prevent unauthorized access. | While your on-premises security protocol may be secure, you are responsible for maintaining it, by implementing firewalls, encryption, and data backup. Improper maintenance can quickly lead to gaps in your cybersecurity. |
Disaster Recovery | Azure Cloud provides automated monitoring, data backups, and failover servers that preserve your information in the case of a disaster. Whether you experience a data breach or power outage, Azure brings your system back online quickly. | On-premises data backup and disaster recovery can be challenging since it requires you to either make physical backups or use a second data center. This can lead to you putting all of your eggs in one basket. |
Scalability | Using cloud services allows you to scale your services up and down based on your needs—you only pay for the resources you use. You can easily add more storage, applications, and more as your business grows. | To expand your on-premises infrastructure, you need to integrate a significant amount of new hardware. This process requires a substantial amount of time, energy, and money. It can also create complicated security and access issues. |
Encryption | Azure Cloud provides superior encryption services that keep your critical business data secure in transit and at rest. This allows you to maintain compliance requirements as well as overall cybersecurity. | Most encryption practices focus on encrypting data while it’s in transit because that’s when data is most vulnerable. Many on-premises servers don’t encrypt data at rest, which can put your business at risk. |