One of the biggest challenges while choosing cloud infrastructure is understanding them and making the right decision because it will directly impact your organization's overall performance in the long term. Since we’ve three ownership models to choose from, choosing the right one is no longer easy.
When it comes to choosing the correct cloud ownership model, one cannot choose on a random basis. The best way is to understand your organization's needs and to ensure that the chosen cloud model aligns with your requirements.
To have a better idea of what cloud model to choose, let's first examine their benefits-
Public Cloud
In the public cloud, cloud services are offered by third-party service providers. These service providers offer a pool of computing resources that can be accessed by multiple users.
Benefits of public cloud-
- Affordability- Public cloud services follow a pay-as-you-go model, where businesses only pay for the services they use. Organizations may optimize costs with the public cloud by scaling their resources up or down as necessary.
- No capital expenditure - One of the significant benefits of the public cloud is that it eliminates the need for upfront capital expenditure as all the hardware, software, and infrastructure are provided and managed by third parties. The cost of maintaining, upgrading, and purchasing physical equipment is thus minimized.
- Easy deployment - Public cloud providers offer a wide range of pre-built services and resources that can be quickly deployed. Startups and companies with fluctuating workloads will particularly benefit from this capability.
Private Cloud
In the private cloud, infrastructure is completely owned by one organization. It can be hosted within the organization's data center or by a third-party cloud service provider. One of the features, that distinguish private cloud from others is that its infrastructure can't be shared with other organizations.
Benefits of private cloud-
- Higher Security – In the private model, access to resources is limited to the organizations only, thus eliminating data breaches and unauthorized access. It allows organizations to have great control over security and meet regulatory compliance.
- Customization- High levels of customization are available with private clouds. The infrastructure can be modified to fit unique company objectives and IT requirements. For enterprises having unique operational requirements, they can go for private cloud.
Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud offers benefits of both the clouds and is commonly adopted cloud. The aim is to offer flexibility and leverage the benefits of both public and private clouds.
Benefits of private cloud-
- Flexibility- A hybrid cloud is highly flexible as one can switch from public to private or vice-versa according to needs for different workloads and applications.
- Improved data security- With the hybrid model, data security is improved, and businesses have better control over their data compared to the public cloud. As data is there on both clouds, it can be recovered from either platform in case of data loss or disaster.
All models have their pros and cons. To make a conquering choice, businesses need to do an assessment of their IT environment, size of business, goals, and requirements and then accordingly decide.
Wrapping Up
Today, selecting the cloud is not merely a choice but a necessity. The question lies in what type of cloud to opt for that aligns best with the business goals.
The public cloud would be the best choice for businesses and startups that need to be cost-effective. Also, organizations can get access to scalable IT resources without involving upfront investment. But it's worth noting that this model can't be a choice when it comes to handling sensitive data as it is associated with high-security risks.
On the other side, businesses can handle highly sensitive data with a private cloud as it caters to the needs of specific organizations only.
However, this incurs the highest cost among all models.
The hybrid model offers benefits for both environments and is best for businesses that have fluctuating IT needs. However, managing a hybrid cloud environment requires thorough planning and administration.