What Kind of Cloud is Best? An Overview on Cloud Types and Advantages
Cloud advisors guide businesses on selecting the solutions that will impact them the most, and one of the first things to consider is the type of cloud deployment that best fits your business needs, security requirements and budget.
Here’s a high-level overview of the four types of cloud solutions.
Public
A platform that makes resources such as virtual machines, applications or storage available to multiple customers who share the common infrastructure. Each customer’s data is isolated from other tenants.
Benefits:
- Low capital expenditure: Users do not buy, install, operate or maintain equipment
- High reliability, with services that evolve across multiple data centers
- Service provider handles all software updates, saving internal IT resources
- Pay only for what you use
- Users can develop their own applications that are hosted in the public cloud
Downside: the lack of control over data security, upgrades, timing and administration.
Private
A private cloud service is made up of private servers, serving a single enterprise. It can be on-site or off-site, managed by the enterprise or by a third party.
Benefits
- Security: Data and applications are only accessible to your enterprise
- Flexibility: You can move non-sensitive data to a public cloud to accommodate bursts of demand on your private cloud
- You have maximum control over your data and infrastructure and can customize your environment
Downside: It costs more to operate and maintain your own data center, hardware, and software.
Hybrid
A hybrid cloud combines public and private cloud deployment models, operating as separate entities, with the ability to manage them as one. On-premises data center, private and public cloud resources are tied together under common data management while staying distinct.
Benefits
- Agility: Gives you the ability to combine public, private and on-premises resources and scale up or down as needed
- Lower capital expenditure, because you don’t need to purchase all your own data center equipment
- Cost savings, depending on your configuration
- Ability to connect existing systems running on traditional architectures that run business-critical applications or contain sensitive data not appropriate for a public cloud
Downside: Might not be the best solution for applications that are latency-sensitive, especially when moving data back and forth between pubic and private aspects of the hybrid cloud.
Multi-cloud
A multi-cloud environment is similar to hybrid, but it relies on a diverse architecture, and multiple public cloud service providers.
Benefits:
- Put workflow tools in one cloud (Azure) and production environment in another cloud (AWS) all while having them work together
- Lower risk of DDos (Distributed denial of service) attacks because your resources are in multiple clouds
- Gives you the flexibility to choose hosting providers that fit a variety of needs and avoid getting locked in to one vendor
- Enterprise applications, customer facing application servers
Downside: A multi cloud environment will take more operational effort on your side and require they have operations expertise across different clouds.
It can be complex, which is why CIO Magazine reported that more than 70 percent of cloud consulting engagements result in either a 10 percent cost overrun or a change order. This is where a trusted cloud consultant can make a huge difference in your outcome.
Here are six key capabilities to look for in your cloud advisor.
As CEO of Packet Fusion, Matt sets the tone and vision for our company and our customers. His 20+ years in telephony gives him a deep understanding of unified communications and collaboration technology. He is an engaging presenter and has a knack for breaking down the often over complicated VoIP technologies into plain and simple English. Outside of PFI, Matt’s happy place is on the golf course or on a bike ride with his daughters.