Are you researching about cloud solutions? Well, then you must be very aware of the debate between private cloud vs public cloud**.** This has become one of the most hyped and typically a trend in IT industries as it offers advantages over traditional data center build outs to enhance scalability, performance and even security.
So, when these organizations are trying to implement cloud computing as they are developing various strategies, confusion arises and the organizations thus need to face choices between the two clouds. Because when it is done correctly, the cloud base virtual infrastructure offers advantages over a traditional data center.
So, which side do you want to stand with? While this question is going on in your mind, the first and foremost thing that you need to do is know the difference between public cloud vs private cloud. But before that, first, know about these two in details.
Private Cloud
Private clouds are owned by a single company, which are basically data center architectures that provide flexibility, automation, monitoring, scalability, and provisioning. Private cloud technology is not sold as a service to external customers; instead, it is like gaining the benefits of the cloud system, while actually not giving up the control of maintaining your own data center.
Hence, private clouds can thus be expensive and is not usually a good option for small or mediocre sized business and are mainly used by large enterprises. Private cloud computing security is driven by concerns of compliance and even keeping your assets within the firewall.
So, when this type of cloud is the obvious choice? Look below for the answers.
- When security is the main concern in your business. In cases, where data and applications are your most important assets and you need control over them at the same time, private cloud is the name.
- You have a business that is in need of strict security and confidentiality.
- Having a large company that can very effectively run a next generation cloud data center and that too on its own.
Advantages
There are so many advantages of private cloud and so opting this will let you come to terms with these benefits.
- Security: Private cloud involves a single organization. This allows you to design network, data storage, and hardware in a way that you are ensured of security and cannot be accessed by any clients even if it is in the same data center.
- Compliance: Because the private cloud is dedicated to a single client, compliance can be effectively delivered.
- Customizable: This lets you customize and specify network performance, hardware performance, and storage performance.
- Hybrid Deployments: Hardware can be integrated to private cloud even if a dedicated server is needed in order to run a high-speed database application.
Disadvantages
Although, these clouds offers maximum security and control, at the same time the purchase and maintenance of all software and infrastructure are to be done by the company, thereby reducing the cost savings.
Public Cloud
This is basically the internet. The Internet is used by the service providers to make resources. Like any form of application and storage, which is available to the general public, same can also be achieved in a public cloud. Some worth mentioning examples of this cloud system are Windows Azure Services Platform, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Sun Cloud, IBM’s Blue Cloud and Google App Engine.
These types of clouds are best for users which are not very expensive to set up because the bandwidth, application and hardware cost is covered by the provider, thus providing the best economies of scale. The usage cost is dependent on the capacity that is used.
But, you must be aware of when this cloud system can help you out. Know from the below-mentioned points.
- The workload for application is used by lots of people, like in the case of email.
- When you are in need to develop or test an application code.
- When you SaaS (Software as a Service) applications, with a well-implemented security strategy from a vendor.
- When you are in need of incremental capacity
- You are involved in collaboration projects
- Developing ad-hoc software using a platform that offers cloud.
Advantages
Just like private cloud, there are many advantages of public cloud too:
- Utility Model: This cloud system is based on pay-as-you-go model; you pay for the resources that you use. This is quite an economical way if you are opting for development servers on a regular basis.
- No contracts: Since you are paying for the hour, so you can simply shut it down after two hours of usage.
- Shared Hardware: The server shares the same storage, network and hardware devices, like the other tenants in the cloud.
- Did self-manage: Want to set up and manage the details of your server? With the pay-as-you-go model, you can effectively do it in this cloud.
Disadvantages
Although it offers so many features, it may not be the best for some organizations because it limits security, configuration, and SLA specificity. So for those services that use sensitive data, it may be subjected to compliance regulation.
Public vs Private Cloud
The concept of the two cloud computing is quite clear by then, right? So, let us look at the difference between private and public cloud.
The public cloud consists of a set of services that is purchased by an organization and delivered by a third party provider via the internet. The services include processor power and storage capacity which is again not owned by the organization itself. The capacity can thus be owned by a cloud infrastructure vendor or a primary vendor.
On the other hand, private cloud is an extension of a traditional data center, which is optimized in order to provide processor power and storage capacity for the different type of functions. This platform is basically a nonshared resource.
Although these two are the two main major forms, cloud computing comes in another form called Hybrid cloud. This includes a variety of public and private options at the same time.
So, while selecting cloud providers can be a major concern for cloud consumers due to the security of cloud services, there should be sufficient information to build the trust. But in reality, the information is critical and is not cloud publicized.