Quite frankly, the cloud computing industry comes with jargons and terminologies that only the IT personnel and administrators can understand. Therefore, the IT industry must also bear the weight of clarifying the functions, features and exactitude of terms to educate and inform CIOs, managers and startups on their decision-making process for cloud adoption.
The purpose of this article is to clarify the difference between the public and private cloud and why some companies may prefer the latter.
Cloud computing is a widely discussed and debatable topic for a few years now, and whilst the public cloud gets a bulk of attention that links to high-profile tech brands including Google and Amazon, our goal is to understand more about the functions of a private cloud and its impact for long-term business operations.
To understand each cloud type, we define a private cloud as a highly virtualised data centre or IT infrastructure that exists within a company’s firewall. On the other hand, a public cloud is a service that is provided off-site over the Internet by a third-party company that maintains the infrastructure for you.
The difference between the two is the level of control that each type offers to companies. Private clouds are maintained within its private network, whereas public clouds are maintained by the cloud service provider and is more vulnerable than former.
These are the main reasons why companies often choose private cloud:
1. Reduction of Operational Costs
Private clouds reduce IT expenditures due to its standardisation and automation features that help the IT staff to focus on providing services to customers and enhancing the quality of service.
2. Data Sovereignty
The private cloud offers security and control within the hands of the company. They want only their data to exist within the organisation’s private network, which gives them a sense of control whilst working on sensitive information and proprietary projects.
3. Performance as a Motivator
In addition to reduction of operational costs and data sovereignty, an infrastructure that requires very fast performance with robust data processing complements a private cloud service. Companies that are involved with confidential projects simply cannot work in a public cloud. If the company also uses resources on a larger scale and actively test projects, it would need a scalable solution to handle the large amount of workload, and private cloud is the best option. The company owns the private cloud where the infrastructure (including servers and VMs) is controlled, seen and managed by internal and external auditors and IT staff.
4. Security for All Reasons
Companies working on a proprietary project, offering payment processing services and data storage and handling of state secrets cannot use a public cloud in this manner. Whilst it offers scalable solutions as well, deploying a private cloud makes sense in this scenario.
5. Scalable Factor and Customisation
The good thing about private cloud is that it allows companies to scale the services they need. A business can build the amount of memory data needed in certain department, allot the necessary storage and customise security needs and scale the networking gears for faster data processing and connections.
Most medium to large enterprises would prefer to use private cloud due to its ability to process robust data at a faster rate. With all the choices available, companies should also find ways to validate which among the two cloud types would fit on their long-term business operations. However some companies combine the two cloud types, resulting to a hybrid solution. Nonetheless, industry watchers clearly see the significant impact of the cloud to enterprise users.
