What’s Your Cloud Strategy?
Once your organization has gone through the three-step process of defining your cloud strategy and determined that the cloud is the right option, then it is time for the next decision: Choosing a cloud service platform. This is another significant choice that requires thoughtful evaluation. Is your business IT infrastructure best suited for a public cloud, a private cloud or a combination of the two, utilizing a hybrid cloud concept?
First, you must understand the differences between each platform.
In simple terms: The Public Cloud is a multi-tenant environment where you pay a service provider for the resources you use, i.e. applications, storage, etc. It is a shared environment that is available over the Internet.
The Private Cloud is a single-tenant environment devoted solely to your company’s infrastructure. Private cloud users have full administrative access to their hypervisors, allowing for much more control over network operations and maintenance.
The Hybrid Cloud is generally defined as a combination of private and public cloud services. This can be an in-house private cloud with a public cloud via a third-party provider, or multiple private and/or public clouds hosted in a provider’s data center. With clarity on the differences between platforms, you can better evaluate your options using these rules of thumb as guidelines:
Choose the public cloud if:
- Business growth and/or resource usage fluctuates.
- You would rather spend money on monthly operational expenses than capital expenses.
- Staff is limited and you don’t want to commit internal IT resources to basic day-to-day tasks.
Choose the private cloud if:
- Security and compliance are your top priority or you are in a regulated industry, such as health care or banking.
- Your business and networking demands are unpredictable.
- You want to maintain total control over your environment.
Choose the hybrid cloud if:
- You have legacy applications or hardware that are not cloud-ready.
- You plan to migrate to a complete cloud solution as existing hardware expires.
- You have some highly sensitive data that you want to continue to host privately while utilizing benefits of a public cloud for less critical data.
Still have questions? Reach out to a highly qualified cloud hosting provider, such as Expedient, to discuss in detail.
