Public Cloud

Public cloud is a model where companies effectively rent space on a server shared with other businesses to store their data. The public cloud has the advantage of being scalable, but it can also be expensive and difficult to customize because companies don’t have control over the infrastructure where their data is stored.

Public cloud uses a utility pricing model where customers only pay for what they use, but unmonitored usage or sloppy setup can make public cloud use extremely expensive.

Private Cloud

Private cloud is a model where companies store their data on private servers that are typically only shared with an internal network. Private clouds offer the advantage of being highly customized and private but can lack the scalability of public cloud is hosted on-premises.

A private cloud can also imply a server used by a single business rented from a cloud provider. These offer greater privacy with the scalability of a public cloud.

Private clouds are typically billed at a fixed rate, with the total price often determined by the number of CPUs and storage space required. Private cloud billing is typically not dependent on bandwidth usage like public clouds are.

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid Cloud is a combination of Private and Public Clouds. Private cloud is hosted on-premises for greater privacy, while public clouds are used to tap into the scalability that they offer.

Organizations in industries such as education, government or finance may not want all their data housed in one location for reasons of security or regulatory compliance so will use hybrid solutions.

Hybrid cloud is a combination of public cloud and private cloud and will therefore consist of both billing models. The public side of the hybrid cloud will be billed at a utility rate whereas the private cloud will either be billed monthly if rented from a provider or cost in hardware upgrades and employee labor hours.

Advantages of Private Cloud

Control

Compared to public clouds, and even hybrid clouds, private clouds offer a higher degree of control over what goes on in the cloud. Private clouds offer more flexibility for IT administrators to set performance, availability, and security policies than public clouds do.

With a private cloud, you also have data sovereignty which will allow customers to retain complete control over their own sensitive data without having it hosted outside its country of origin or any other location that does not meet regulatory requirements.

Customization

Private clouds offer the greatest flexibility and control in terms of customization. Private clouds allow IT administrators to choose the type of hardware, software, networks, and applications that will be used during its setup process. Private clouds offer complete flexibility for admins because they can make any adjustments or modifications necessary.

Security

The greatest advantage private clouds have over their public counterparts is security. Only a single company has access to a private cloud meaning that other companies cannot peer into your business’ data, whether intentional or not.

On-premises private clouds also provide the advantage of big public clouds like Amazon or Google not having access to your data.

Compliance

It is much easier to meet strict compliance requirements for private clouds because private clouds can be designed to meet the specific compliance needs of your business, whereas public clouds cannot guarantee that they will have all the necessary certifications.

HIPAA for example requires that only a single company or entity have access to your data. Private clouds can confidently meet this requirement whereas public clouds either cannot meet this or will charge an astronomical amount of money for extra isolation.

Consistency

Private Clouds offer the greatest consistency because they are not dependent on the resources of a shared environment. This means that other companies will not hog resources potentially causing your site or app to behave slowly. In a private cloud, RAM, CPU, and storage are dedicated to your company’s usage.

Privacy

Private clouds bring a lot of privacy with them. They are only accessible to the company that owns them, and they can be set up in a way so nobody outside of your company can see inside. Private clouds also offer more data protection because others cannot access data without explicit permission.

Cost

Depending on the setup, private clouds can offer significant cost savings compared to both public and hybrid environments. Big public clouds like AWS, Google, or Azure charge very high rates and utility billing is hard to control effectively. Private clouds are either purchased outright and depreciated over years or cost a fixed monthly amount making them cheaper in the long run.

Performance

Without a doubt, private clouds offer the greatest performance. Private clouds typically offer much more powerful specifications such as scalable processors. These resources are also reserved only for your company rather than shared with others meaning you reap all the performance benefits.

Private clouds can even come in the form of dedicated or bare metal clouds which dedicate an entire server with cooling, resources, drives, and all only working for you.

Summary

To conclude, Private Clouds offer the best performance, reliability, and cost. Private clouds are an excellent option for most companies looking to keep their data safe and secure all while reducing cost.

But your business should also explore public clouds and hybrid clouds should those solutions better serve your businesses’ needs.