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On-Premisses

On-premise infrastructure means an organization owns and manages all hardware, software, and facilities in-house, from firewalls and switches to power backup and cooling systems. Understanding its cost, control, and security trade-offs is essential for evaluating whether local hosting or cloud migration is the right fit for a given business.

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About this video

On-premise infrastructure refers to an environment where an organization takes direct ownership of every layer of its IT stack — physical hardware, networking equipment, power systems, and environmental controls. A real-world deployment of this kind typically includes firewalls, core and access switches, patch panels, a voice gateway, uninterruptible power supplies for short-term outage protection, and dedicated cooling to keep equipment within safe operating temperatures. Each of these components requires ongoing management, whether handled internally or through third-party service agreements for specialized systems like HVAC and ISP connections. The decision to host infrastructure on-premise versus in the cloud involves genuine trade-offs rather than a clear-cut answer. On-premise environments can be more cost-effective at scale, since large organizations may find that owning and operating equipment locally is less expensive than cloud subscription costs. Smaller organizations, however, often face a tipping point where the overhead of managing physical infrastructure outweighs the savings. Cloud providers benefit from economies of scale that can make off-site hosting more economical for organizations that haven't yet reached sufficient size. Security is equally nuanced. On-premise infrastructure offers dedicated, non-shared resources and direct control over access and configuration — advantages that matter when a team has the expertise to implement and maintain strong security practices. When that expertise is limited, however, cloud environments managed by dedicated security professionals may offer stronger protection in practice. Ultimately, the right choice depends on an organization's size, budget, and the depth of its internal IT and security capabilities.

What you'll learn

What's covered

On-Premise Infrastructure

Key terms

On-Premises
An infrastructure deployment model in which hardware and software are hosted locally within an organization's own facilities rather than in a cloud provider's data center. On-premises deployments give organizations full control over their security posture.
Server
A computer or program that provides services or resources to other devices, known as clients, over a network.
Firewall
A network security device that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing traffic based on predefined security rules.
Switch
A network device that connects devices within a LAN and forwards traffic based on MAC addresses.
Redundancy
The duplication of critical components or systems to increase reliability and availability.
Uninterruptible Power Supply
UPS
A battery-backed power device that provides continuous power to connected equipment during utility power outages or voltage fluctuations, allowing safe shutdown or continued operation. UPS units are essential for servers and critical infrastructure to prevent data loss.
Scalability
The ability of a system to handle increased load by adding resources without degrading performance.
Cloud Computing
The delivery of computing services including servers, storage, and software over the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Topics

On Premises Infrastructure Data Center Cloud Vs On Premises Infrastructure Management Networking Power And Cooling

Transcript

On premise just means that I am managing everything within the infrastructure.

A real MDF

Here's a picture of the MDF in one of the buildings that I used to manage, one of the businesses that I used to manage. In this room we have a bunch of equipment that was my responsibility. In fact, this looked terrible when I got there and I cleaned it all up — that's why you're seeing all the wires nice and neat there.

So what do we have here? We have the internet service provider right here, so the ISP has a connection right there, and then that loops up and around and connects into one of these switches or one of the firewalls down here. Right here on the wall, which you can't see because it's around the corner of the wall, is an AC unit cooling down this room. Down here at the bottom there's two UPSs, uninterruptible power supplies. This provides power if the power were to go out in this building. I think our target was 30 minutes — our equipment would stay up and running for 30 minutes.

Then we've got a couple of firewalls. We've got a voice gateway right here. We've got some switches: there are two core switches here, and then there's three access switches here. And then we've got the patch panel here. This was all my responsibility.

I don't have a picture of the network room, but I had a network room which had network services. This is what's considered all on premise. I had to manage all of this. I had a company come in and provide services where they managed the AC unit and would check it once a quarter and manage that. I had the internet service provider and phone provider, and they would check their services. But for the most part we would manage all of this.

Advantages and disadvantages

On premise can be cheaper, unless you're really small. If you don't have a lot of stuff and you're putting so much time into managing the AC and the power and all of these aspects, then maybe it's just better to move it up. There's something called economy of scale, and I won't get too involved into that, but these cloud providers have an economy of scale, so that by moving to the cloud it could actually be less expensive, and it could be more expensive hosting it locally. This kind of varies depending on what your situation is. Don't think that the cloud is just going to automatically be cheaper. Definitely once you scale and you're a large business, it actually makes more sense to host it locally than it would be to host it in the cloud. But there is a tipping point with that.

The advantage also of being on premise is you definitely have more control. It can be more secure because you're not sharing the resources with other people, so this is a real advantage to it, that it's not shared. But in some ways you could think of it as being less secure.

Wait a minute here — it's more secure and less secure at the same time? The way I like to look at it is: if it's local, I have more control on making sure that it's secure on resources that aren't shared. But as soon as I put it up in the cloud, then what happens is that the security is in the hands of hopefully professionals that do that as a day-to-day job; there's somebody that just focuses on security of those machines, and so hopefully things are actually more secure up in the cloud.

So it really once again has to do with resources. I can be more secure if I have enough resources to handle it locally. But if I don't have the resources to make sure things are secure, then it's much better up in the cloud, because up in the cloud they'll have more expertise, versus on premise I might not have that level of expertise within the team that I manage to be able to implement things correctly.

So here's really the summary of everything that I am responsible for if it's on premise.

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