Knowledge centre
Practical guidance before the technology decision.
Use these comparisons and checklists to prepare a stronger infrastructure, hosting or AI project brief.
Explore, compare and planInfrastructure discovery checklist
Document users, locations, applications, data sensitivity, downtime tolerance, growth expectations and current pain points before choosing a platform.
- Which services stop work or learning when unavailable?
- Who needs access, from where and using which devices?
- What must be retained, backed up or recovered first?
Compare complete operating models
Look beyond the server price. Include administration, connectivity, security, backup, support responsibility and the cost of changing capacity.
- On-premises offers direct hardware control.
- IaaS adds flexible virtual capacity.
- Managed hosting combines a platform with operational ownership.
Define healthy operations
Agree what is monitored, who responds, how changes are approved and how recovery is tested.
- Set service ownership and escalation paths.
- Review patches, capacity and backup results.
- Keep architecture and access documentation current.
Service comparison
Choose the operating model, not only the location.
| Consideration | On-premises | IaaS | Managed hosting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware ownership | Your organisation | Provider platform | Provider or selected cloud |
| Capacity changes | Procure and install | Adjust virtual resources | Requested and managed |
| Daily operations | Internal team | Shared responsibility | Defined managed scope |
| Best fit | Specialised local workloads | Flexible infrastructure teams | Teams wanting one support path |
Project guides
Questions worth answering early.
Is the organisation ready for an AI bot?
Begin with one useful task, a defined audience and approved source material. Decide what the assistant must refuse, when a human takes over, how answers are reviewed and how access to sensitive information is controlled.
When does private cloud connectivity help?
It can be valuable when predictable routing, separation from the public internet, resilience or connectivity between several cloud environments matters.
Which storage type belongs where?
Object storage suits scalable unstructured data and archives; block storage suits many databases and virtual machines; file storage supports shared hierarchical access.
Is having a backup enough?
No. Define recovery time and recovery point objectives, protect backup access, keep appropriate independent copies and test restoration.
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