Private vs. Public Cloud: Both are Relevant

According to a recent survey – 93 percent of companies are using cloud technology in one form or another.  Although industry experts and journalists contend that the famous public cloud vs. private cloud debate is over and both forms of cloud storage have their unique benefits, many businesses still find it hard to choose a cloud solution that best suits their storage needs. Choosing a cloud solution for your data is not a decision to be taken lightly. This is because the final decision could considerably impact the technological direction of your organization. A misinformed decision can cost a lot of money and time.

According to experts, companies can have the best of both these cloud options — the accessibility, scalability, and flexibility of a public cloud with the control and security of a private cloud.

The Appeal of Public Cloud

Public cloud is appealing to many enterprises because no investment is required for deploying and maintaining the IT infrastructure. Businesses also enjoy reduced complexity and don’t need IT expertise since the cloud vendor is responsible for managing the infrastructure. As the resources are often offered 'on-demand', it is easy to handle any changes in activity level. This, in turn, makes public cloud cost-effective.

Private Cloud is Here to Stay

There is still a strong case for private cloud because of some unique benefits that it offers. The main benefits companies can achieve by running their systems in a private cloud environment are flexibility, strong security, guaranteed resource availability, and regulatory compliance, and in a few cases, cost savings.

There is no denying that the greatest benefit of private cloud is the enhanced level of security compared to a public cloud environment. As all data is managed and saved on servers to which no other organization has access, data privacy is greatly improved. If your servers are on-site, your internal IT team will manage them. So, your organization does not have to worry about the physical security of your infrastructure. Even with the latest security measures, most public cloud servers employ, companies are still not 100% sure about storing their most sensitive data on offsite servers. Private cloud is a better solution for sensitive documents, such as human resources records, business plans, accounting information, and customer data.

Another amazing benefit of private cloud is ensuring compliance. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are required to comply with internal and national laws and policies. In this case, the private cloud is the best option, as you can deploy it in accordance with any access-control and retention policies. The matters of privacy and compliance are compounded by the legal liability involved in data protection in a highly regulated industry, such as healthcare. 

As personal data protection laws are changing on a regular basis, such as Europe’s GDPR, even many less regulated industries need to be careful and vigilant about what personal information is stored where.

And that is not all; Private cloud is, in fact, less expensive for a lot of businesses, as evidenced by a study from 451 Research. IT decision-makers cited automation, capacity planning, and costing technologies as the key drivers of cost-efficiency. 

Making the Most of Both Infrastructures

Considering that we have both options, using a combination of public clouds, private clouds and on-premises computing in your data center means that you’ve a hybrid cloud infrastructure. This allows you to get the best of both worlds. 

One of the main benefits of a hybrid cloud is its agility. The need to change and adapt direction in a timely manner is a core principle of any digital business. Your company may want (or need) to leverage private clouds, public clouds, and on-premises resources in order to gain the agility it really needs for a competitive advantage. For instance, as public cloud infrastructure is more suitable for many customer-facing apps and websites, you will be better off running a production site on the public cloud along with a backup on your private cloud. This will allow you to make changes as well as test them in a closed environment before you deploy them back into a live environment.

Highly sensitive businesses, like hospitals and other healthcare organizations, have found tremendous success by using hybrid cloud models as they allow these organizations to keep complete control over sensitive data, like patient records 

Final Thoughts 

As both public and private clouds have their unique set of benefits, rather than debating which platform is better, you should combine the two technologies to derive optimal benefits for your business. Perhaps, more importantly, you should find a solution that best meets the specific need and preferences of your business.