Choosing an On-Premises or Cloud Environment

You can choose to run Vertica on physical host hardware, or deploy Vertica on the cloud.

On-Premises Environment

Do you have access to on-premises hardware on which to install Vertica? On-premises hardware can provide benefits in cases like the following:

  • Your business needs demand keeping sensitive data on-premises.
  • You prefer to pay a high up-front cost of buying hardware for on-premise deployment, rather than potentially paying a higher long-term total cost of cloud deployment.
  • You cannot rely on continuous accessibility to the internet.
  • You prefer end-to-end control over your environment, rather than depending on a third-party cloud provider to store your data.

If you plan to install Vertica in an on-premises environment, this section of the documentation walks you through preparation and installation: Installing Manually

Cloud Environment

Vertica can run on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. You might consider running Vertica on cloud resources for any of the following benefits:

  • You plan to quickly scale your cluster size up and down to accommodate varying analytic workload. You will provision more computing resources during peak work loads without incurring the same resource costs during low-demand periods.
  • You prefer to pay over time for ongoing cloud deployment, rather than the higher up-front cost of buying hardware for on-premise deployment.
  • You need to reduce the costs, labor, and expertise involved in maintaining physical on-premises hardware (such as accommodating for server purchases, hardware depreciation, software maintenance, power consumption, floor space, and backup infrastructure).
  • You prefer simpler, faster deployment. Installing on the cloud eliminates the need for more specific hardware expertise during setup. In addition, if you plan to use AWS, Vertica offers templates on the AWS Marketplace that allow you to deploy a pre-configured set of AWS resources on which Vertica and Management Console are already installed, in just a few steps.

If you plan to install Vertica on the cloud, first see Installing In the Cloud.