Moving everything to the cloud is not always the best decision, and keeping everything on a server in the office is not either. For many SMBs, the answer sits in the middle: a hybrid cloud, where some systems live in the cloud and others stay in the office, connected in an orderly way. The key is deciding what goes where and migrating without stopping operations.
What each model is
- On-premises: servers and systems in your office or warehouse. Full control, but also full responsibility for power, backups, security and replacement.
- Public cloud: services you rent from a provider and pay for by use. Available from anywhere, with no equipment to buy.
- Hybrid: a combination of both, with clear rules about what lives on each side and how they connect. NIST defines it as a composition of two or more distinct infrastructures that remain unique entities but are bound together so data and applications can move between them.
When moving something to the cloud makes sense
- Your server is old and replacing it means a large purchase.
- The team works from several locations, from home or in the field.
- A system must stay available even if the office loses power or internet.
- You want a backup copy outside the building.
- You have seasons with much higher demand than the rest of the year.
When keeping something on-premises makes sense
- Systems that depend on physical equipment: scanners, scales, industrial printers or machinery.
- Very large files used all day inside the office.
- Unreliable internet connectivity at the site.
- Requirements from a customer or a regulation about where certain information must be stored.
Costs to look at
The cloud trades a large purchase for a monthly payment, but it is not always cheaper. Check before deciding:
- Monthly compute and storage cost at real usage, not the minimum.
- Charges for data transferred out of the cloud.
- Software licenses, which may change when migrating.
- The internet connection the office will need, ideally with a second backup provider.
Set up spending alerts from day one to avoid surprises.
How to migrate without disrupting operations
- Inventory: which systems and data you have, who uses them and what they depend on.
- Classification: what moves, what stays and what gets replaced by a cloud service.
- Pilot: migrate something low-risk first, such as one department's files or a secondary system.
- Phased migration: during low-usage hours, with a plan to roll back if something fails.
- Validation: users confirm everything works before the old system is turned off.
- Documentation: where each thing lives, how it is accessed and how it is backed up.
Security in the cloud
- Second factor on every admin account.
- Least-privilege permissions by role, reviewed regularly.
- Encryption of data and connections.
- Your own backups, even if the provider has its own.
Common mistakes
- Migrating everything at once over a weekend.
- Copying the old server's problems into the cloud without fixing them.
- Not calculating the internet the office will need.
- Having no backup of your own because you trust only the provider.
How we approach it at Syatek
We run our own platforms in the cloud on AWS and Cloudflare, so we know the costs, security and daily operations first-hand. With that experience we help you decide what to move, what to keep and how to do it in phases. See our networks and infrastructure service or start with IT consulting.
