Comparing Public, Private and Alternative Clouds – Which is Right for Your Organization?

In this blog:

• Introduction: Exploring the Different Types of Cloud Computing
• Identifying Your Cloud Needs
• What is Private Cloud?
• What is Public Cloud?
• What are Alternative Clouds?

• Hybrid Cloud
• Multi-Cloud
• On-Demand Private Clouds

• What is OpenMetal?
• Finding the Right Cloud Strategy for Your Organization

Introduction: Exploring the Different Types of Cloud Computing

In just 15 years, cloud computing has undergone a remarkable transformation. The good news is, you’re no longer limited to one-size-fits-all cloud solutions. Instead, you can now have a cloud that’s tailor-made within your budget and optimized for your workloads.

With public and private clouds as the traditional options, innovative alternative clouds have emerged and are making waves. Deciding which cloud to use for your organization requires careful consideration of factors such as your unique business needs, budget, security and compliance requirements, and other important factors. 

Are you ready to uncover the ultimate cloud solution for your organization? Join me as we explore and compare different cloud types. We’ll dive deep into the world of cloud computing and find the perfect cloud model that fits your unique business needs.

Identifying Your Cloud Needs

In order to find the right cloud to fill your organization’s needs, you will need to identify what you need your cloud for.

First consider your workload – what resources (CPU, memory, storage, etc) will you need to support your application?

Second, what level of control and customization will you need over your cloud?

Third, what are the security and compliance requirements for your workload/data? Some industries such as healthcare, finance, and legal are subjected to strict regulations that require organizations to keep sensitive and confidential data on private clouds to be compliant.

Another big deciding factor is cost. Traditional private clouds require significant upfront costs and traditional public clouds are only economical for small workloads (which is why I recommended that you understand your workloads before looking at your budget).

And last is support – do you need a managed service or do you prefer to have your internal team manage your cloud?

While you have an abundance of cloud options to choose from, it is very important to know precisely what your organization’s immediate infrastructure needs are and it’s even better if you can predict what you will need for longer terms (1-3 years) as the savings with longer term contracts vs on-demand are worth taking a reasonable amount of time to figure out. If you do not understand your needs, you can wind up significantly overpaying for resources you don’t need or experience performance issues resulting from not having a cloud infrastructure that can support your workloads optimally. Both can severely hurt your organization.

What is Private Cloud?

A private cloud is a cloud computing environment that is on hardware entirely dedicated to one organization. This cloud can be managed by the organization using the cloud (in a traditional on-premise solution) or hosted by a third party cloud provider (hosted private clouds). Hosted private clouds can be available on demand like public clouds.

Advantages of Private Cloud

These apply to both traditional and hosted private clouds:

• Greater control: organizations with private clouds have greater control over their infrastructure and data, as resources are entirely dedicated to a single organization and are not shared with other users. This allows organizations to customize their infrastructure to meet their organization’s evolving needs.
• Customization: full control of your infrastructure means it can be customized as you deem necessary to satisfy various needs such as security, compliance, and performance. This feature is what makes private clouds the best choice for highly regulated industries like healthcare and banking.
• Security: private clouds can offer enhanced security features, such as dedicated firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and encryption, but the key to remember is that you may have to set them up. You can install and configure any security measures you need on your cloud. Private clouds do come with some default security features and, because they are on dedicated hardware, they are not vulnerable to certain types of cyber attacks such as Retbleed or Heartbleed attacks.
• Reliability: private clouds can offer greater reliability because resources are not shared, so you always know the entirety of the workload your hardware is processing.

Disadvantages of Private Cloud

Traditional Private Cloud

• Higher upfront cost: hardware can be very expensive and even if you use open source software, the cost for hardware and labor to set up and configure the cloud alone can be exorbitant for smaller organizations.
• Complexity: setting up and managing a private cloud can be complex even with open source software available, organizations will need highly skilled cloud engineers to accomplish this task.
• Maintenance: all clouds require ongoing maintenance and updates, which can be time-consuming and require additional resources. With a private cloud, you may be responsible for maintaining and updating your cloud.

Traditional and Hosted Private Cloud

• Limited scalability: private clouds may have limited scalability, as they are limited by the physical resources available within the organization. To be fair, all clouds’ scalability is limited by available hardware.

Private clouds are better suited for organizations that require greater control, customization, and security. But even with a private cloud, you have the option to do it yourself or have your cloud hosted which removes upfront hardware costs and takes away the complexity of setting up and managing your cloud.

What is Public Cloud?

Public cloud is a third party managed cloud platform that provides cloud resources on demand via Virtual Private Clouds. The hardware is shared by multiple users and even if you provision a large enough workload that can use a full cloud, your virtual machines (VMs) may be spread across multiple shared servers. You do not have control over what hardware within the data center your VMs are on or who also has workloads on the hardware yours are on.

Many organizations will begin their cloud journey on public clouds because their workload isn’t significant enough to offset the cost of an entire cloud. But as your workload increases, so does your cloud bill, and it is wise to have a contingency plan in place for when your workloads are at a scale where it’s no longer fiscally wise to remain exclusively on public cloud.

Advantages of Public Cloud

• Scalable: one of the most popular perks of public cloud is its scalability, which permits organizations to easily increase or decrease resources as necessary.
• Cost-effective: public clouds are cost-effective as users only pay for the resources they use, this is a great advantage for organizations with very small workloads.
• Wide range of services: most public clouds grant organizations access to a wide range of services and applications, reducing barriers that may prevent organizations from quickly deploying new technologies and services.
• Easy maintenance: public clouds are managed by third-party vendors, so organizations do not need to maintain their cloud infrastructure.

Disadvantages of Public Cloud

• Security: public clouds can be more vulnerable to security breaches, as resources are shared among multiple users and the cloud provider manages security.
• Limited control: public clouds offer less control over infrastructure and data, you do not have root level access to configure your cloud infrastructure as may be necessary to optimize your workloads or to meet industry imposed security measures.
• Dependence on vendor: if something goes wrong, you have to wait for your provider to fix it.
• Compliance challenges: your virtual machines are on hardware resources used by other organizations from any industry. This makes it difficult for a one shoe fits all set up that will be compliant or optimized for workloads across industries.

Public clouds offer on-demand scalability, cost-effectiveness for small workloads, and a wide range of services, but may have security and compliance challenges, and organizations will have limited control over infrastructure and data.

Most organizations will begin their cloud journey with public clouds. But as their workloads grow, fiscally conscious organizations will quickly transition to a hybrid cloud or on-demand private cloud solution.  With the recent focus on the expense of public clouds, a new term, Cloud Repatriation has been coined. Check out this article on Cloud Repatriation Options – Colo vs On-Premise vs Hosted Private Cloud for more details on selecting between common choices.

What are Alternative Clouds?

Alternative clouds are cloud computing environments that do not conform to the traditional public and private cloud models outlined above.

As cloud technology has evolved organizations are no longer bound by limitations of a cloud type. You can have a private cloud and have resources available on demand, you can have all the conveniences of a public cloud without the disadvantages of noisy neighbors, vendor lock in, etc. And when a vendor fails to meet an organization’s needs exactly, resourceful organizations purchase only what they need from vendors and find what’s missing from another organization or build it themselves. The days of cloud vendors sticking organizations with costly bundles and packages that force them to pay for resources beyond what they need because it’s the only way they can get all the resources necessary to successfully conduct their business will soon be behind us. This can given a rise to alternative cloud providers.

Let’s explore alternative cloud models:

Multi-Cloud

A multi-cloud is a cloud environment combines computing services from at least two different cloud providers. This is usually a system of using multiple public cloud providers to take advantage of the best pricing available as your organization and its needs grow. If AWS had the best pricing when you started putting workloads on the cloud, there’s no reason to put new workloads on AWS if other vendors now have more attractive pricing. This is usually an approach implemented to avoid vendor lock-ins while using public cloud. Some organizations that use the multi-cloud approach include Netflix, Adobe, and HSBC.

Hybrid Cloud

A hybrid cloud is a cloud environment built of a combination of cloud types which can include on-premise infrastructure, private cloud services, and public cloud. This model allows organizations to take advantage of the benefits of the various cloud models, such as the scalability and cost-effectiveness of public clouds and the security and control of private clouds. Some businesses that use this approach are Verizon, Walmart, AT&T, and Volkswagen. These organizations use a combination of public clouds and private clouds powered by OpenStack.

What is OpenMetal?

OpenMetal is a next generation cloud provider on a mission to simplify the adoption of open source and empower individuals. OpenMetal provides on-demand private cloud built with a minimum of 3 hyper converged servers running on OpenStack and backed by Ceph. These clouds can be housed in OpenMetal’s Data Centers or On-Premise with OpenMetal pod solutions (which do take more than 45 seconds to deliver and install).

Conclusion: Finding the Right Cloud Strategy for Your Organization

Public, private, and alternative clouds each have their own advantages and disadvantages. There’s no one-size-fits all answer to the question “what’s the best cloud environment for my organization”?

Hopefully, if you know what your organization needs, you were able to identify which aspects of each cloud match what your organization is looking for. Chances are you realized that you will need a hybrid approach because you want to take advantage of the perks of both clouds.

Or, maybe your industry’s regulations require that you have a private cloud; on-demand private clouds are a way for your organization to enjoy the speed, convenience, and scalability of a public cloud while maintaining a private cloud model.

Many organizations start out with a public cloud and when it is no longer economically viable to keep their workload on a public cloud, they migrate it to an on-demand private cloud model.

It is very important to understand that as your workloads change, the cloud you started with may no longer be the best cloud for you. Still not sure what’s the right cloud for your organization?

Schedule a consultation with one of our cloud consultants to discuss your cloud needs and build a cloud strategy that’s right for your organization!