Public Cloud Vs Private Cloud Vs Hybrid Cloud

The IT department of several companies now manage applications across various environments in a complex IT architecture. They must regularly evaluate their unique blend of private cloud, public cloud and on-premises infrastructure to meet the new business check list and find out how applications can be moved to the public cloud in most affordable and effective means.

Hundreds of applications built at various times, by different teams, and in different languages, need to be evaluated for cloud migration. Most often, this requires in-depth knowledge of the existing IT infrastructure and also public cloud resources that can replace these functions.

Eventually, companies must pick the most suitable cloud hosting solution for each application.

This article is aimed at discussing the differences between private, public, and hybrid clouds to help prospective, new, and old cloud users to decide the best cloud-based services. 

PUBLIC CLOUD

Some examples of public cloud include Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) being offered by Amazon, Google, or Amazon. These companies give both services and infrastructure shared by all of their clients, public cloud has easy scalability because the usually has huge amounts of available space.

For collaborative projects and software development, public cloud is regularly recommended. Companies are allowed to build their own applications, make it portable so that projects tested in the public cloud can be effortlessly moved to the private cloud for production. Most cloud services providers package resources of their computing as part of a service.

Examples of public cloud ranges from access to a whole virtualized infrastructure that gives more than untapped processing storage and power to specialized software programs that are elementary to set upand use e.g. Software as a service, SaaS).

The most notable advantage of a public cloud is its “pay as you go”and versatility featurethat authorizes customers / clients to have more demanded capacity. The major con of public cloud is that the operating system, and essential infrastructure of the public cloud is under the uninterrupted control of the cloud provider. Clients may continue to use public cloud platform under the provider’s laid out terms and conditions, but they may face difficulty when exporting their data if they want to move to another cloud provider.Also, if the cloud provider changes to the platform, or go out of business, customers would be compelled to make consequential changes on a short time frame. Hiring the services of an IT personnel with Azure cloud certification or AWS cloud certification would help you easily adapt to those changes. 

Advantages of public cloud

  • High reliability – public cloud providers has a wide network of servers to ensure against failure and breakdown
  • No added maintenance cost – your cloud service provider does all the maintenance and services to keep the cloud functioning properly
  • Affordable fee – you do not need to buy software and hardware, do not need to buy software and hardware, you only pay for services you use
  • Near-limitless scalability – all resources are available on-demand to meet up with your business needs
  • Reduced requirements and complexity on IT expertise as the cloud service provider is responsible to manage the infrastructure 

Disadvantages of public cloud

  • Low control and visibility of the infrastructure
  • Not the ideal solution for security and sensitive mission-critical IT workloads
  • TCO (total cost of ownership) can exponentially rise for large scale usage, especially for medium-sized to large companies. 

Public cloud is suitable for

  • Test environments and software development
  • Applications and services needed to perform business and IT operations
  • Foreseeable computing requirements such as communication services for a certain number of users 

PRIVATE CLOUD

Private cloud is used by a single organization and usually reside behind a firewall. Although private clouds delivered through a colocation provider is garnering popularity, a completely on-premises cloud might be the viable solution for businesses with stiff regulatory requirements.

Authorized users can utilize, access, and store data in the private cloud any location, just like they do with a public cloud, but no one else can utilize or access those computing resources unless permission is granted.

The full control offered by a private cloud makes it easier to limit the access to valuable assets and allows the company to move its applications and data whenever and wherever it wants. The private cloud is not controlled by an external vendor, so there is no risk of abrupt changes disrupting the company’s whole infrastructure. If a private cloud user is associated with a public cloud provider, they will not be affected by the public cloud system downtime. The private cloud is very delicate so access should only be given to persons with experience in the cloud and if possible,AWS Cloud certification. 

Advantages of private cloud

  • Improved security – data stored are not shared with others, the level of resource security and control are high
  • More flexibility – your cloud environment can be customized to meet the specific business requirements of your company
  • High scalability –using a private cloud would still get you the efficiency and scalability of a public cloud
  • High SLA efficiency and performance 

Disadvantages of public cloud

  • Expensive solution with a high total cost of ownership and maintenance
  • Mobile users may face some access limits to the private cloud because of the high security measures used to protect data 

Public cloud is suitable for

  • Companies that can afford to pay for high performance and availability technologies
  • Government agencies and highly regulated industries
  • Technology companies that need strong security and control over their underlying infrastructure and the IT workloads
  • Large companies that require advanced data center technologies to function properly and cost-effective 

HYBRID CLOUD

A hybrid cloud is a cloud infrastructure that is a combination of public and private cloud solutions. They are integrated to allow the two cloud solutions to seamlessly interact, with application and data moving smoothly from one to the other. There are organizations where a single public cloud is not enough to handle the organization’s computing goals, they use multi-clouds, a more multifarious hybrid cloud example that mixes a private cloud with several public cloud services. A hybrid cloud can be easily set up and managed by IT personnel with Azure cloud certification and AWS cloud certification . 

Advantages of hybrid cloud

  • Full and customizable control – a private infrastructure can be maintained by your organization for their private and sensitive assets
  • Cost-effectiveness – hybrid cloud has the ability to jump the public cloud, so you pay for extra computing power only when necessary
  • Flexibility – you can take the convenience of the additional resources available in the public cloud when you need them
  • Ease – moving to a hybrid cloud does not have to be complex because you can gradually migrate at your own pace 

Disadvantages of hybrid cloud

  • It can be very expensive
  • More complex infrastructure is added as companies manage and operate an evolving combination of public and private cloud architecture
  • Durable integration and compatibility are needed between cloud infrastructure reaching different categories and locations. This is a disadvantage for deployment of public cloud because organizations lack full control over the infrastructure. 

Public cloud is suitable for

  • Improving security of cloud solutions such as Software as a Service (SaaS)
  • Optimizing cloud investments without jeopardizing the value proposition of either private or public cloud technologies

 

PUBLIC VS PRIVATE VS HYBRID CLOUD: WHICH SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?

With several cloud computing options available to companies, it is not surprising that many organizations find it hard to choose the most suitable service for their current business requirements and future goals.

The choice between private, public and hybrid cloud solution depends on the type of factors, limitations and use cases. Companies tend to use all three types of cloud solution considering the value propositions and tradeoffs.