Pros
Data. Data privacy is one of the biggest pros of traditional IT infrastructure. Because you store your data locally, you have complete control over it. You then don't need to worry about sensitive data leaving your company. Especially when it comes to compliance, data protection can be a huge advantage.
Security. It's easier to ensure only approved personnel can access stored applications and data with traditional IT infrastructure. Data centers are physically connected to your local network. Your IT department can manage them round-the-clock. It does take a lot of time and money, however, to ensure you have the right security strategies and data recovery systems in place.
Control. Traditional IT gives IT departments complete control over their infrastructure. The IT staff is responsible for troubleshooting, changes, updates, and maintenance. A business with this IT model could exercise a lot of flexibility, as the on-site staff determine the function and execution of services.
Cons
Resiliency. Traditional IT systems require higher investment in the infrastructure to be as resilient as the cloud. Therefore, they cannot guarantee a consistently high level of server performance or data backup. Also, traditional IT often lacks Infrastructure-as-a-service to architect application resilience.
Scalability. With traditional IT infrastructure, you can only use what you have. Growth requires pre-planning, approval cycles, purchase processes, installations, and deployments. You have only one solution if you run out of storage: rent or buy another server. Also, if you hire more employees, you must pay for more licenses and deployments. You also must manually upload these employees onto your office hardware. If your business is growing fast, such an investment in people and infrastructure can become very expensive and time-consuming.
Cost. With traditional IT infrastructure, you will need to buy more servers and equipment if you decide to grow your business. These investments depreciate over time. Consequently, you must pay for the resources you don't use if business slows. Physical servers also reduce in value with time and may not meet evolving performance demands unless you continuously invest to refresh them. Investing in traditional IT infrastructure has a poor return on investment.
Overall, traditional IT infrastructure presents more obstacles today than the cloud does. Traditional IT is more complex, requiring long-term planning and upfront investments. The cloud allows for the flexibility you need to get started quickly and grow with little investment upfront.
