October 23, 2019
Public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds. What do they all mean? Where does one end and the other begin? How do they overlap? Which one is best? So many questions, I know. So, I’ll try and spell it all out for you as plainly as possible, beginning with the public cloud and its viability in business.
All companies, from small start-ups to mega-corporations, take advantage of the public cloud in some way. It could be as simple as using Microsoft as the platform for company emails, or it can be the host of enterprise applications for the organization. Everyone benefits by having scalable, secure, cutting-edge public storage and software applications at their fingertips — that’s paid for on an as needed basis. The list of public cloud-computing advantages is a long one:
Secure
May include robust encryption technology backed by industry-leading security compliance, to protect users against hackers, spam, malware and more.
Cost Effective
Public cloud providers give businesses the flexibility to only pay for the infrastructure they need, for excellent cost efficiency.
Easy
Marco can assist you in easily configuring and managing the cloud set-up remotely with just an internet connection.
Strategic
An in-house IT staff is expensive. With the public cloud, IT teams put their talents to use for you and other users.
Maintenance-Free
The cloud provider maintains all hardware, software, networks, security and upgrades, so you don’t have to.
Scalable
Cloud providers use a pay-as-you-grow model, so as your organization evolves, the infrastructure is there to handle it.
Comprehensive
The cloud provides simplified internal operations, better collaboration, faster rollouts of new business initiatives, improved data gathering and superior analysis functions.
Global
With massive networks, servers, bandwidth and resources, the cloud is accessible worldwide, 24/7/365.
Backed
Data is automatically mirrored at servers in multiple locations, eliminating backup worries or the need to invest in internal hardware.
Risk-Free
Cloud providers, with their vast server networks, guarantee no risk of failure on your critical business applications.
Is Public, Private or Hybrid the Way To Go?
Marco is cloud a provider with a team of expert sales engineers who can assess your business, objectives and growth trajectory to guide you toward the best possible cloud or cloud configuration. For a better understanding of the technologies available, let’s take a closer look at the public skyline, as well as the other two cloud types.
Public
A public cloud is the most common cloud-computing model. Public providers leverage the Internet to make resources like infrastructure, storage, servers and software available to businesses. The multi-tenant, pay-as-you-go environment makes it easy to split the infrastructure costs, making it ideal for small and mid-sized businesses.
Public clouds basically shift “capital” expenditures for hardware and IT professionals to “operating” expenditures — thereby reducing upfront investments, ongoing costs and even potential tax liabilities.
Companies can decide whether they want to manage the public cloud infrastructure in-house, or outsource it to a Managed IT Services provider like Marco — where we maintain the infrastructure, web servers, application servers, load balancing, custom failover scripts and more.
Private
If it makes sense in your business assessment, Marco can build a private cloud right under your organization’s roof. This means you’ll have physical ownership of the hardware, and experience seamless software accessibility and data control. A private cloud is ideal in the following scenarios:
- For organizations that prefer to have all data on-site, like healthcare providers.
- If you run a high-volume, time-sensitive and confidential email platform, such as those used by brokerage houses.
- When certain features in Legacy Applications prevent some applications from operating well in the public cloud.
- For applications that have very predictable usage patterns and low storage costs.
- If you have already invested significant capital in on-premise infrastructure configured to support a specific application.
- Your application functions with high performance and availability within your custom infrastructure.
- If your organization produces large multimedia files that in-house staff need to access to for editing/distribution purposes.
Because private clouds require equipment, housing, maintenance and upgrades, they are the most expensive cloud option for businesses. However, the additional expense can deliver tighter privacy to companies who are willing to make the investment.
Hybrid
For organizations looking to reap the benefits of both types of clouds, there's a third option. It’s an integrated solution known as a hybrid cloud that gives your organization the freedom to customize the best cloud combination for the way you do business. This is becoming extremely popular with many line of business software applications being delivered in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) based fashion.
Hybrids are often the service of choice for businesses with privacy concerns and highly sensitive data, such as those working in the healthcare, legal and financial information industries. They appreciate the protection offered by the private cloud component.
A hybrid is also attractive to large organizations that want to explore the flexibility and scalability of the public cloud while maintaining key infrastructure on their private cloud. It means they must maintain an IT staff for legacy applications/infrastructure, while opening new lines of business in the public realm. An important thing to understand is that hybrids are only as strong as the integrations that unite them. Performance monitoring, regular testing and data analytics will identify shortcomings and reveal future areas of improvement.
The team you choose to orchestrate your company’s cloud configuration is critical to your computing success. The similarities and differences between public, private and hybrid clouds can be downright confusing. At Marco, we have a knack of putting all that IT tech-talk into plain English. So, feel free to call on us any time to shed some light through those clouds.
