- own the hardware, if you have constant load and have enough expertise (personally or a team) to use/maintain it at your required reliability level
- rent the cloud, if your usage is opportunistic/ spike’y/rapidly changing
- also rent the cloud, if required expertise/maintenance would cost you more than the hardware (if you want to have gazillion of nines, you need somebody who’s there to deal with smoking stuff, in several locations)
- own the hardware, if you have constant load and have enough expertise (personally or a team) to use/maintain it at your required reliability level
- rent the cloud, if your usage is opportunistic/ spike’y/rapidly changing
- also rent the cloud, if required expertise/maintenance would cost you more than the hardware (if you want to have gazillion of nines, you need somebody who’s there to deal with smoking stuff, in several locations)