Why is on-premise still here?

Ever since “cloud computing” hit the headlines (thank you Eric Schmidt, 2006), people have been predicting the end of on-premise solutions. After all, why do we need on-premises when we can achieve things like greater cost efficiencies, flexibility and better uptime SLAs in the cloud?

The fact of the matter is - while conceptually, the cloud beats on-premise hands down - reality continues to play out differently. Particularly for enterprise organizations who have complex infrastructures, legacy technologies and thousands of users - staff, business partners and customers - accessing systems. Add to that, for some highly regulated industries (think financial services for example) where regulation is so strict, it makes moving to the cloud a difficult sell.

So, let’s start unpacking some of those aspects which slow down, or currently prevent organizations from moving to the cloud:

1. Security and Compliance

It’s safe to say that this is the biggest barrier for organizations. Cloud computing utilizes multiple data centres, with some of those data centres hosted countries who hold different views on topics such as data privacy. And from a compliance point of view, some regulators absolutely won’t let data out of the country or region the business operates in, in order to preserve that data privacy.

Additionally, from a security point of view, cloud computing providers may not have the high enough levels of security built into their architecture that some organization types need, and if customer data (for example) is centrally stored in the cloud, that risk is then too high for them.

2. Complexity

No business starts out with plans for how they want to look and work in 10 or 20 years time. Organizations grow, for the most part, organically. Departments grow, business units are created, acquisitions are made, and people naturally end up working in silos, which means processes, technologies and data end up in silos too. Users accessing the company’s technology also increase and vary - from access management rights for staff through to business partners and customers.

Migrating to the cloud can add dependencies to existing infrastructures which not only increases administration, but it can have very harmful effects such as customer data being stored across multiple instances, which could cause disruption to the customer experience, not to mention the inefficiency and insecurity of such an approach opening the business to unacceptable risk.

3. Management and Resources

When it comes to cloud computing, there are multiple choices and working out which one is the best fit, that will bring value, be secure and improve operations and user experience (think of how many times or places your employees or customers are being asked to login or authenticate) and the road to cloud adoption gets complicated, fast.

And for those organizations who have to still use on-premise solutions, they will automatically have the requirement for a hybrid approach, which is a challenge for some cloud providers as they can’t offer the same level of data storage, protection and SLAs on-premise that they do in the cloud.

So how can organizations who need to maintain on-premise solutions, but also want to have the option of utilizing the benefits of a cloud solution (at some point), move forward?

Here at Keyless, we’re aware that some of our customers have been experiencing the pains we’ve just been speaking about. And while we can’t solve the entire on-premise-cloud conundrum, we are pleased to say we’re doing our part when it comes to how you can manage digital identity and authentication for your users, business partners and customers: with Keyless On-Premise. It will work just like our existing solutions do - just like an on-premise service. We feel this is an important step, especially for our customers in those highly regulated industries, who can’t quickly or easily move to the cloud. We can offer our customers the ability to quickly adopt and deploy cutting edge technology - without the need to complete a multi-year digital transformation project first. 

If you would like to find out more, please get in touch.