Private cloud hosting and hybrid cloud hosting are both growing in popularity, and they both have their benefits and drawbacks. So how can you know which cloud hosting option is right for your company? Each one offers different cloud computing resources that benefit different organizations, industries, and sectors. Let’s look at these two cloud environments and determine which ones are best for which industries and business types.
Private Cloud Benefits and Drawbacks
If you select a private cloud environment, you’ll have a private network designed specifically for your business. That’s because a private cloud is dedicated to a single organization. It’s the opposite of a public cloud service, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS). Where public clouds provide broad services focusing on data storage and application hosting, private clouds focus on providing adaptability and flexibility while hosting critical data for your business. Public clouds provide a wide range of features so that many different organizations can customize them for their needs. Private clouds, on the other hand, provide just the features that their specific organizations need.
Additionally, private and public clouds differ in how and where servers host them. Public clouds keep your business’s data on their servers. For instance, if you use AWS, your data will be stored on an AWS server, which could be located hundreds of miles away from your business. Private servers, on the other hand, are usually hosted onsite. This can be an advantage, since you’ll have complete control over your server and the data it hosts. However, it can be a drawback because you have to have all the hosting equipment onsite, and you must maintain it yourself. Ask yourself if that’s a possibility for your business. Do you have the budget to purchase and maintain that equipment? Does your staff have the IT expertise to oversee the server? Your answers to these questions will determine whether a private cloud is a viable option for your business.
Public clouds provide a wide range of features so that many different organizations can customize them for their needs. Private clouds, on the other hand, provide just the features that their specific organizations need.
Hybrid Cloud Benefits and Drawbacks
A hybrid cloud environment represents the middle ground between the extremes of public and private cloud environments. In fact, it combines one private cloud and one public cloud and runs them in parallel environments so they can connect with each other when necessary. For example, you can conduct customer interactions in the public cloud while keeping internal interactions in the private cloud. The private cloud’s server can be located onsite, while the public cloud server is hosted by its cloud service company. Then your hybrid cloud infrastructure becomes a management tool that leverages the public cloud’s efficiency and data storage while also providing the private cloud’s security and flexibility measures.
While a hybrid cloud model gives you the best of both worlds in those regards, the drawbacks have to do with your business’s size and your IT budget. You’ll need to be able to pay for both private and public cloud environments, and you’ll most likely need an MSP to help you navigate your new hybrid cloud computing environment. You also need to work with your MSP to determine how to configure and scale your hybrid cloud infrastructure. This new infrastructure will require a lot of time, money, and effort to put it in place, but once it’s there, you can take advantage of its security, flexibility, and efficiency.
We Can Help You Choose the Right Cloud Model
If you read this post and you’re still weighing your hybrid cloud vs. private cloud decision, reach out to us today. We can help you navigate the differences between hybrid cloud and private cloud environments and determine which one is best for your company and your industry. We’ve worked with many different organizations, ranging from healthcare to government offices to education, so we know how to find the right cloud solutions for different sectors as well as different industries. We can scale the cloud solution you choose to meet your business needs and help you achieve your goals. No matter what your cloud computing needs are, CTMS is here to fulfill them.
