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What is Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud?
Private clouds and public clouds represent two of the most common types of cloud computing environments. A private cloud is used by a single organization and, therefore, affords greater control, security, and personalization. Hosting may be from the organization via an on-site data center or through a third-party provider, making it fit for businesses that demand a high level of privacy with regard to their data. On the other hand, in a shared public cloud scenario, multiple users utilize and are served by external providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. Proper public clouds are scalable; in fact, they have become attractive alternatives to investment in heavy infrastructure because of their price point.
When it comes to choosing between private or public clouds, an organization must define its needs first. For instance, organizations usually favor private clouds if they need tighter security and compliance. In contrast, businesses that require greater flexibility and reduced costs usually choose the public cloud. Each model has its unique(s) advantages; understanding such differences can help choose which is best suited for your IT strategy.
Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud: Pros, Cons, and which is right for your Business.
Cloud computing is gaining ground as the new way for companies to use system infrastructure. While many organizations have adopted the use of private cloud, others prefer to use public cloud infrastructure. In this blog, I will write about both private and public clouds, their pros and cons and what businesses should consider before settling with any of the two.
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How Does a Private Cloud Work?
Private clouds work by implementing technologies like:
Automation technologies: These technologies help to reduce the integration time needed for repetitive tasks.
Virtualization: This technology gives room to allocate some memory space in your local machine to test prototypes before deploying to real environments.
Types of Private Cloud Solutions.
- On-premises private cloud: Here, the organization deploys their own private cloud on its resources in a private data center.
- Managed Private Cloud: Here, an organization outsources the maintenance, upgrade, support, etc of the private cloud to a third-party organization.
- Virtual Private Network: This private cloud is deployed within a public cloud infrastructure. This cloud infrastructure gives users access to some public cloud infrastructure characteristics like scalability.
Pros of Private Cloud
Technavio reports that the private cloud market size will grow to $619.08 billion between 2023 and 2028. What is then the advantage of private cloud infrastructure? These are numerous and include:
- Security: Because they are used by a single entity, there is little room for attackers to gain access to the infrastructure.
- Segmented and allocated resources to a single user per time.
- Control: This infrastructure is designed for a single user who can control choices regarding upgrades, scalability, software apps, etc.
- Enhanced Control for regulatory compliance: Private clouds give their owners the privilege to customize any segment of the infrastructure to meet regulatory standards.
Cons of Private Cloud
- More expensive: Private cloud requires an organization to purchase its own operating systems, storage space, and buildings and recruit and train staff who will manage its operations. All these involve cost thus raising the initial capex of private cloud operation.
- Lower scalability: Since the construction of a private cloud comes with a predefined budget, any further expansion in the future will require the purchase of both hardware and software, thus increasing scalability complexity.
- Limited user access: Private clouds are designed to have many layers of security. The numerous authentication and authorization requirements can make access cumbersome and thus limit user access.
What is a Public Cloud?
This is a computing model whereby service is rendered to users through a remote internet connection, utilizing a pay-per-use pricing model. Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are the popular cloud providers.
How Does a Public Cloud Work?
Public cloud works by leveraging the offerings of third-party cloud providers to move the system infrastructure of an organization to the cloud. For example, organizations can now purchase virtual desktop licenses which work the same way as a physical desktop. A public cloud divides the data center into virtual machines and then shares them among customers(tenants).
Types of Public Clouds.
- Saas(service as a software): Here, the cloud provider offers their software services for use through purchase on a subscription basis.
- Paas(platform as a service): In this public cloud, the provider provides the environment and platform for the development, launching and management of applications online.
- Iaas(infrastructure as a service): Here, the tenant rents the provider’s infrastructure to build, manage and control their IT environment.
Pros of Public Cloud.
The public cloud has a lot of advantages which are outlined here:
- Lower maintenance cost: since here, companies rent the system infrastructure from cloud service providers, the problem of infrastructure maintenance has been shifted to the cloud providers.
- Lower Equipment Purchase Need: since organizations can rent and use virtual desktops, the need to spend money on physical equipment has been reduced.
- Can be accessed from anywhere: Data stored and backed up in a public cloud can be accessed from anywhere.
Cons of Public Cloud.
- Security: in a public cloud, data is shared from multiple organizations thus, increasing the likelihood of a security breach. Also, any security compromise from a third party automatically affects the organization.
Key Differences Between Private Cloud Vs Public Cloud.
| Private cloud | public cloud |
| Operates a segmentation model that allocates resources to a single business user. | A shared architecture model here allows allocation of resources to more than one business user. |
| Can be operated at the business owner’s data center of a third party cloud service provider’s environment. | mostly operated from a third party service provider’s environment. |
| mainly used by large organizations like financial institutions and government | mainly used by relatively small organizations. |
| Relatively more expensive to maintain. | expensive to manage. |
| designed with more significant layers of security. | Designed with relatively less amount of security measures |
| Relatively higher equipment cost since we buy the system infrastructure. | lower equipment maintenance cost since we rent system infrastructure. |
| Relatively more difficult to scale up | Relatively easier to scale up. |
| Data centers are not segmented into virtual machines. | segment the data center into virtual machines to be shared among tenants. |
| relatively hard to deploy | easy of deployment |
Which One is Right for Your Business?
Truthfully, choice of cloud infrastructure is largely dependent on the kind of business, financial capacity, and security needs. For example, financial institutions and government agencies that deal with sensitive customer information, like adopting the private cloud infrastructure for themselves because of the added security measures that it offers. On the other hand, small businesses that do not have the financial power needed to set up a private cloud can leverage the offerings of third-party cloud providers that offer pay-as-you-go options.
Conclusion:
We have explored public and private cloud infrastructure, pros and cons and which is right for your business. We can see that choosing between any of these depends on the business needs, budget and security needs. Ultimately, alignment of business cloud strategy, organizations budget and regulatory requirements ensures that businesses leverage cloud offerings most efficiently
