Public vs. Private Cloud Q&A (Part Two)

As shared in an earlier blog, businesses review the types of cloud offerings available. This is the second installment of a two part blog series where we will finish providing common questions and answers to about the similarities and difference between the public and private clouds.

Q: Why would a business want to choose private cloud service over a public cloud service?

A: Admins might choose a private service when their businesses require more certainty and granular control over service availability, uptime and security. A private cloud enables a business to have more control and freedom over how it uses its internal infrastructure to manage the cloud. A business can use its own firewall to protect data, and it can use the infrastructure to provide availability and uptime. A business can be more confident in being able to solve outages on its own network rather than waiting in uncertainty if the provider's service fails.

Q: Who is responsible for security in a public cloud service?

A: Whether PaaS (Platform as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) or SaaS (Software as a Service), all public cloud services are the responsibility of the provider and tenant when it comes to security. Amazon explains this as the difference between security of the cloud and security in the cloud.

The cloud provider is in charge of security of the cloud, which includes the security methods the cloud provider implements and operates. Security in the cloud is the security methods the user implements and operates. Security in the cloud would include the user's data, applications, OS and network. Security of the cloud includes the cloud's software, which includes computing, storage and databases; network and hardware, such as servers; and availability zones.

Q: Can PaaS and IaaS be delivered in a private cloud?

A: Yes, private clouds can host both PaaS and IaaS services. PaaS enables users to create, manage and deploy software applications; the PaaS provider supplies the networks, servers, OS, storage and databases. However, PaaS can limit developers to whichever programming language the provider offers. The Kubernetes-enabled platform Microsoft Azure and Apprenda are two examples of PaaS systems.

IaaS provides virtualized computing resources over the internet to provide an infrastructure for an organization that can't build or manage its own. An example of an IaaS is OpenStack and NEC. An IaaS provider can customize the infrastructure to what each organization needs.

Q: Maintaining a private cloud includes management of which IT services?

A: In a private cloud, an organization's IT infrastructure hosts data and applications. This means the organization's infrastructure must be consistently maintained and architected with high resiliency to ensure adequate and consistent uptime.

A private cloud must manage services and infrastructure such as software stacks, network, automation and orchestration, as well as hardware, such as computers, physical servers, data centers and other parts of the IT infrastructure. Everything must be kept up to date and secure. However, users are free to maintain their IT environment as they see fit.

Q: Is a private cloud more or less expensive than a public cloud?

A: The private cloud is more expensive. The owner of a private cloud must provide the infrastructure (such as networks, servers, OS, storage, databases and updates). This means there is an additional cost for installing, operating, deploying and maintaining each tool in the environment of a private cloud service.

In addition, an organization might have to adjust or increase its IT staff to successfully move to a private cloud, which means spending more money on staffing. In addition, the average cost of maintaining an on-premise private server is almost $1,500 a month, whereas the monthly cost for a public cloud server is only around $300.

Q: What are some of the biggest monitoring oversights that can happen in a private cloud?

A: Because a private cloud is hosted using the organization's infrastructure or through a third-party hosting provider, the organization can have in-depth detail on what is going on in its environment if it adds the proper monitoring tools. An organization that uses a public cloud is subject only to the monitoring tools that the provider offers, such as AWS CloudWatch.

However, oversights can still occur in a private cloud. Further insight into metrics such as workloads, traffic or performance can be complicated by the transfer of data packets from server to server or by traffic between VMs.

To view the first part of this blog series – click here

To best review your business needs and evaluate the data that you need to keep secure, consult with an agnostic technology agent or consultant to gain a deeper overview of the wide range of solutions and how each one fits in with what you're trying to accomplish. In addition to assisting you with procurement, they can also handle ongoing care.

About Simplicity

Simplicity VoIP, based in Richmond, VA, provides hosted PBX, VoIP and business telephone solutions nationally to small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses for a comprehensive unified communications experience. Two distinct Class 5 geo-redundant VoIP platforms are offered in addition to fax-to-email, phones and equipment, and managed services. As a compliment to its business communications solutions, Simplicity offers a host of additional cloud and security technologies.

source: techtarget.com