Intelligent Tech Channels Issue 72 | Page 52

DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY
reduce latency and improve customer experience by locating equipment near the areas they serve .
Cloud data centres
A cloud data centre is a facility owned by a cloud service provider such as Amazon Web Services , Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud . These providers offer virtualised environments that enable organisations to store , process and analyse data and run applications over the Internet .
Top three advantages of cloud data centres
• World-class facilities and IT . Organisations without facilities or IT expertise can leverage state-of-the-art infrastructure , hardware and software from a cloud provider .
• Extreme agility . Customers can easily scale up or down very incrementally based on demand , enabling rapid provisioning and time-to-market .
• No upfront costs . Usage-based pricing models enable organisations to quickly deploy services and applications without any initial investment in physical IT or facilities .
Top three disadvantages of cloud data centres
• Security concerns . Entrusting sensitive data to a third-party provider may raise concerns about data privacy , potential breaches or regulatory compliance .
• Data sovereignty issues . Data may be stored in different jurisdictions , potentially leading to compliance complexities , regulatory conflicts or access limitations .
• No control . Cloud providers own and operate their data centres , leaving
What all deployment options have in common is the need to monitor and manage the infrastructure . customers no input into infrastructure or security measures .
A cloud data centre may be the right choice for :
• Start-ups or small businesses with limited IT budgets and rapidly changing needs .
• Large enterprises that want to take advantage of cloud services such as Big Data analytics , Artificial Intelligence , Machine Learning and Blockchain , have distributed workforces that need to collaborate and share data in real-time or need to leverage cloud solutions for Disaster Recovery .
• Seasonal businesses that need to quickly scale to meet spikes in traffic or other organisations with unpredictable or fluctuating workloads .
• Development and test environments to allow developers to quickly build and tear down environments and focus on innovation .
Hybrid data centres
A hybrid data centre is any integrated combination of on-premise , colocation and cloud infrastructure .
Top three advantages of hybrid data centres
• Flexibility : Organisations can distribute their workloads to the most appropriate buckets to efficiently meet changing business needs .
• Security and compliance : Mission critical infrastructure and sensitive data can be kept on-premise or in colocation facilities ensuring a balanced approach that addresses security concerns and regulatory requirements .
• Cost optimisation : It can be more costeffective to leverage cloud services for periods of variable demand or to rapidly deploy new services before eventually migrating them off the cloud .
Top three disadvantages of hybrid data centres
• Complexity : Integrating and managing multiple environments introduces
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