Finding the Right Home eDiscovery Data Between Cloud, Other Options

For several years, many assumed that cloud-based platforms had permanently resolved the question of where to host eDiscovery systems, freeing the profession to focus its attention on generative AI and review technology.

A closer look at current market dynamics suggests that assumption no longer holds. As Maribel Rivera writes for ACEDS, infrastructure decisions are once again commanding serious attention from legal technology buyers.

The earlier assumption oversimplified a more complicated reality. Rather than a simple choice between cloud and on-premises systems, organizations today actually operate across a spectrum that includes public cloud, single-tenant private cloud, traditional on-premises infrastructure, and hybrid combinations of these approaches.

Many organizations ended up running blended environments, not through deliberate strategy but through years of incremental decisions. That pattern that often proves costlier than committing intentionally to one model.

Several converging pressures are forcing renewed scrutiny of these choices.

Vendors are signaling reduced long-term investment in on-premises offerings. Generative AI features once sold separately are increasingly bundled into standard subscriptions. Regulatory requirements around data location and handling continue tightening across jurisdictions, and corporate legal departments are reclaiming infrastructure decisions previously delegated to outside counsel.

Organizations are weighing competing priorities, including configuration control, cost predictability as data volumes grow, hidden staffing costs of in-house systems, client-driven contractual requirements, and how easily a deployment choice could be reversed later.

Early data from an ACEDS survey suggests many practitioners still operate outside pure cloud environments and want strong AI capabilities even when regulatory concerns keep them out of public cloud.

This shift carries real implications for enterprise risk management, since infrastructure decisions now bring regulatory and contractual weight beyond cost alone.

Counsel should weigh jurisdictional risk and international regulatory regimes governing data residency when negotiating vendor agreements, and factor deployment terms into client disclosure obligations.

Read more articles from the Today’s Managing Partner and ACEDS partnership here.