By now, everyone knows the reasons for using cloud: reduced costs, reduced support, increased reliability, increased scalability, increased agility. Of the reasons not to use cloud, security concerns typically get the most attention. With cloud, data and other resources are in a shared environment, theoretically more at risk of unauthorized access than if they resided within a corporate data center.

There’s one other potential drawback to using cloud that doesn’t get as much attention. The loss of control is often glossed over, without acknowledging how extensive that loss is. When you use cloud, you give up:

Control over who uses your server.

You share your server with other cloud customers.

Control over your server specs.

Although you select your instance type from the cloud provider’s menu of options, their descriptions don’t fully detail the specifics of the hardware you’ll be using. When you build serverless applications, you have no information about the underlying hardware at all.

Control over where your server resides.

By default, you know nothing about the location of your cloud resources. You may need to take additional steps or pay additional fees to ensure resources are located in places that satisfy data residency requirements and provide users the best experience.

Control over who provides support.

When you use cloud, it’s the cloud provider’s team, not yours that provides support for the physical infrastructure.

Control over developers.

Cloud gives developers access to a vast array of tools, frameworks, libraries, and APIs. You may have less control over their technology choices. In addition, many cloud tools offer free self-service trial periods, and without controls, those trials turn into subscriptions that cost you money.

Control over security.

Security in the cloud is a partnership between the cloud provider and cloud customers, but it’s not an equal partnership. The cloud provider has insights into physical security and the network that cloud customers simply don’t. If there’s a security incident, you’re dependent on the cloud provider to be forthright about the incident and provide all the details in a timely fashion.

Control over spending.

Despite the subscription model, cloud costs aren’t necessarily cheaper than investing in your own infrastructure. The dynamic nature of cloud can make it difficult to predict and manage cloud spending.

The loss of these types of control doesn’t mean cloud is bad; it simply means that you need to weigh all considerations and realize that cloud may not be the right choice for all your workloads. Whether you choose cloud or decide to keep your infrastructure and applications on-site, Prescient Solutions offers the support and services Chicago and Schaumburg businesses need to keep their IT operations running smoothly. Contact us to learn how our cloud support and managed technology services can keep you in control of your systems and spending wherever your infrastructure resides.