Public vs. Private Clouds: What’s the deal?
Nov 01, 2009
Over the past two years the term ‘cloud computing’ has become one of the trendiest phrases in the IT world. More than likely you are already a part of this explosive trend. If you or your business are currently subscribed to or use online services such as Yahoo e-mail, Google Apps, or even Microsoft’s new Bing search engine—you're part of the ‘in’ crowd. With cloud computing, you request a service and neither know nor care about the location of the computer.
The concept of cloud computing is still evolutionary.Today, there are two particular models available to business: Public and Private. Whether you are a growing business that requires scalability or an organization that is still waiting for the economic up-tick, private and/or public cloud computing should be a part of your business strategy. This article is the first in a series of three prepared by 5NINES employees which introduces the idea behind public and private clouds along with services 5NINES can deliver through our Cloudware program.
Whether public or private, cloud computing has the same objective and that is the delivery of IT services or applications. Public clouds are run by third parties, and applications from different customers are likely to be mixed together on the provider’s infrastructure. Generally, a public cloud is viewed as just being “out there” on the internet.
The most popular or talked about public clouds today come from larger companies such as Amazon.com and SalesForce.com. Amazon.com provides a utility-like service offering of their servers, network and storage. A company can load their application(s) into this environment for per minute/ per hour or per month fee. Salesforce.com is an example of a cloud type called software-as-a-service. One of the fastest growing technology companies in the market today; they started out their success by offering a web-based customer relationship management (CRM) application that is hosted in their network of data centers.
Private clouds are very similar to public clouds in how they operate “behind the scenes.” If your business has a data center that is utilizing virtualization you can deploy your own private cloud or you may create and deploy a private cloud at a co-location facility like 5NINES. Private cloud’s can be built and managed by your IT organization or by a “cloud provider.” 5NINES’s Cloudware service provides a “hosted private” model that can work with you to install, configure and operate an infrastructure to support your application or IT service.
Right now the most pressing question coming to mind is probably, “Well, which do I use?” There are a number of considerations with regard to which cloud model to adopt.One of the most pressing is a comfort level of knowing where your data is. A primary difference is that private clouds are built for the exclusive use of one client vs. mixing in with other clients. An advantage to this is that your business ‘owns’ the infrastructure and has more control over its data, security and quality of service.
5NINES has been implementing cloud computing concepts for several years. Our Cloudware Services team can kickstart your transition to the cloud through the development of a cloud strategy plan. For more information please contact us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).