Data Centers: Is the Build vs. Buy Debate Finally Over?

By Zetta Guest Blog

The debate about build versus buy has raged for years. But the total cost of owning your own data center outweighs the perceived benefits, and it looks like the argument in favor of “buy” may have gained the upper hand once and for all.

Let’s talk about it, though, from the point of view of people who are considering building their own and see how their claims stand up to the current state of backup.

Your Own Data Center is More Secure

This was certainly the case a half a decade or more back. But cloud security has evolved to the point where cloud providers typically have far greater resources to invest in security than an individual company does.

The director of respected security consultancy SANS Institute, John Pescatore, believes that there is no debate about whether we are going to use the cloud. Organizations have largely concluded that the cloud is safe enough to use. Even Google Apps’ Director of Security, Eran Feigenbaum, concluded that all but top-secret data are fine to put on the cloud.

Take the case of our own security procedures at Zetta.net. This includes continuous third-party vulnerability scans, encryption, physical access controls, virtual machine isolation, background checks on all employees, distributed monitoring of system availability and SLA compliance. In addition, Zetta.net maintains business, technical and process controls to secure your data have passed independent SSAE-16 audits (the new SAS 70).

You Can Take Better Care of Your Own Data

Roll back the clock a decade or two, and you will realize that organizations were far better manned than they are today. Back then, you found multiple backup administrators, separate storage administrators, storage managers and more. It was very much the case that a single person oversaw a relatively small set of data and could take a hands-on approach to it. Those days are forever gone. The mantra “Do more with less” has been taken to such extremes that automation is an absolute necessity.

Few organizations hire dedicated backup admins, and many storage admins are now expected to be able to look after servers and networking, too. These personnel look after immense repositories of data. They don’t have the time or resources to do much more than set and forget their backup and storage applications. In such a climate, hosted environments bound by strict SLAs are not likely to “forget one or two small details” that open the business up to the threat of attack or data loss.

You Can Control Your Own Costs

Yes, it is true that if you just dump data onto the cloud without any thought given to quantities, you are likely to get a nasty surprise in your monthly bill. But, on the other hand, adding a steady procession of storage arrays to your infrastructure is no way to win friends or influence CFOs.

If your data demands are modest, you can perhaps maintain control of costs, but more than likely the demands will continue to grow. But storage after all, is only part of the story. Not only will you have to expand or upgrade your storage infrastructure, but there’s also ongoing licensing, maintenance, support and hosting expenses. All too often, costs spiral out of control.

Countless organizations are finding it more cost effective to leverage a cloud backup service like Zetta.net, which is instantly scalable on demand. The bottom line is that it is becoming harder and harder to justify the building and expanding of an internal data center in the face of a steady barrage of highly available, secure and affordable cloud backup services.

Art Ledbetter is director of channels at Zetta. Guest blogs such as this one are published monthly, and are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship.