Microsoft Azure Fundamentals AZ-900 Practice Exam 2025 – Complete Study Resource

The most technical responsibility for a solution that is not cloud-based lies in an on-premises environment. In an on-premises setup, organizations are fully responsible for the entire IT infrastructure, including hardware, software, networking, and security. This responsibility extends to all aspects such as maintenance, updates, backups, and capacity planning.

When utilizing an on-premises solution, the organization has complete control over its resources but also bears the burden of ensuring they are correctly configured and managed. This includes managing physical servers, storage systems, and network configurations.

In contrast, cloud solutions like SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS distribute some of this responsibility to the cloud provider. For Software as a Service (SaaS), the cloud provider handles nearly everything, including maintenance and upgrades. In Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), the provider manages the underlying hardware, while the organization retains control of the operating system and applications. For Platform as a Service (PaaS), the provider manages the underlying platform while the organization focuses on application development. Thus, the degree of technical responsibility decreases with these cloud models compared to on-premises environments.