As IT costs continue to increase and customer demands change, more enterprises are moving to the cloud. Among the appealing benefits of the cloud is the potential cost saving realized by outsourcing business data operations. This is usually down to the economies of scale attributable to energy and operating costs.
The move to the cloud has become a no-brainer for many enterprises. The question begging an answer is whether to opt for public cloud or private cloud services. Today, our focus is on the private cloud vs. public cloud debate. We’ll help you decide what the best option is for your organization.
The Public Cloud
The public cloud is a cloud service that’s open to the public. Normally, you’ll have a pay-as-you-go model where customers access services on demand. There’s usually no agreement on a fixed rate. It is utility computing. Essentially, you will pay by the hour for the resources you use.
Also known as multi-tenant environments, public clouds are an excellent solution to the hardware and network bottlenecking problems many enterprises face. So, moving to the public cloud helps your organization to increase computing performance while reducing business costs. It also gives you the ability to plan for resource usage ahead of time.
You no longer have to worry about maintaining infrastructure and service stability. Yes, enterprises can transfer some of the tasks associated with backups, disaster recovery, and updates to the cloud service provider. Note that most vendors will require you to take charge of your organization’s application-level security. The cloud provider takes charge of physical security and enforcing external firewall policies. This shared responsibility lightens the burden on your end.
The Private Cloud
The private cloud is a single-tenant environment. This means a single enterprise rents computing resources that aren’t accessible to other cloud platform customers. The private cloud serves the needs of your organization only. The only exception to this rule is virtual private clouds. We’ll discuss this later.
In a traditional private cloud hosting setup, the infrastructure enterprises use is custom and proprietary and is usually on-premises. The private cloud connects to the enterprise’s private network directly. Alternatively, the enterprise can outsource hosting to a data center.
Unlike the public cloud, private cloud providers don’t use the pay-as-you-go model. Instead, you pay a flat rate. To benefit from such a setup, you need to have a large enterprise. You should also have a usability plan that protects you against underprovisioning and overprovisioning.
Now, back to the virtual private cloud. This is a type of private cloud setup. Many enterprises share the same hardware. The cloud provider achieves isolation between enterprises via network-based separation using private subnets.
Private Cloud Vs. Public Cloud: The Key Differences
PRIVATE CLOUD |
PUBLIC CLOUD |
Single client |
Multiple clients |
Off-premises or On-premises |
Off-premises |
High capital cost |
No capital cost |
Fully customizable |
Limited customizations |
High IT overhead |
Low IT overhead |
Possible underutilization |
Scalable with demand |
Fully private network |
Shared network |
Private Cloud Vs. Public Cloud: What Should You Go With?
This is all dependent on your requirements. If your organization has to meet government regulations and compliance requirements, private cloud may be the way to go. It’ll also be a great choice if your organization has sensitive data that it doesn’t want stored off-premises. Otherwise, the public cloud presents the best value for money. It’s flexible, scalable, and cost-effective. It also allows you to connect with customers in diverse locations around the world with minimal effort.
