If you’re ready to take advantage of all the benefits that moving all or part of your business to the cloud can offer you, then you’ve made the right choice. But, there’s still one more decision you have to make. Do you opt to join the public or private cloud hosting?
Let’s start with a breakdown of what separates the two types of cloud services.
What is a Public Cloud Service?
The public cloud provider is responsible for all the updates, maintenance, and general management of the system. The provider basically supervises all the data you save in a data center. That provider makes sure that your data is secure and accessible according to your needs. The beauty of the public cloud is that you don’t have to allocate funds or staff to choosing, testing, purchasing, or maintaining your computer, servers and backup systems. The provider is responsible for all of that. You simply focus on running your business and saving your data to the cloud while they handle the rest. Additionally, cloud hosting enables you to access your data and run your software, like QuickBooks or Sage, at any time from any device. The remote capabilities of the cloud can also allow your business to offer work-from-home or remote employment options.
What is a Private Cloud Service?
As the word suggests, the private cloud (also known as on-premise hosting) lives internally within your company. Your IT team would set up a firewall behind which all your data can be stored for safekeeping. If your business already needs to have an IT team on staff or currently owns and uses its own data center, then the private cloud might be the right option for you.
Security in the Cloud
Security is an issue for both public and private cloud accounts. Providers who offer public cloud services have been very active at ensuring that their security protocols use the latest and most effective technology.
Businesses don’t always have the resources to keep the security on their private cloud systems up-to-date. However, the fact that these systems are internal can mitigate the threat of a security breach.
Ultimately, your decision to save your data to the private or the public cloud comes down to some very real day-to-day factors.
• Consider how elaborate and up-to-date your current computer system is.
• Do you have an IT team?
• Do you have a reliable data backup system?
• Do you have the funds to cover the costs of maintaining and replacing servers?
Single Cloud Solution Considerations
Whether public or private, single cloud solutions that claim to meet all of a user’s cloud computing needs in one place have inherent limitations. In these situations, a user has access to only the tools and services a particular service provider offers, and those tools and services are updated and serviced only when the provider decides to do so.
A quality cloud services provider’s contract includes provisions for backing up data and data security. However, if the provider’s servers or networks are damaged or compromised, users run the risk of losing data or exposing it to hacking or other kinds of security issues. If all a company’s sensitive data is held in one place, it can be vulnerable – a concern that makes new cloud adopters wary.
A single cloud service, however comprehensive, may simply not offer all the tools a user needs to get things done. Individual projects and tasks may call for specialized services that a particular cloud provider lacks. Different components of a company’s business may need different services that are not always compatible with the company’s overall cloud service model. In these situations, a company would need to use a second cloud service, at least temporarily.
Multiple Clouds Offer Multiple Choices
For a growing number of cloud users, the best solution for a company’s complex business computing needs is to access the diverse strengths of more than one cloud service provider, mixing and matching cloud services to create a comprehensive strategy for managing a company’s data in the cloud. A multiple cloud strategy can take one of two forms: creating a hybrid cloud or accessing more than one cloud provider simultaneously.
In either case, a user’s overarching cloud computing solution encompasses different components that, taken together, create a comprehensive cloud-based system uniquely able to meet the company’s complex and often changing business computing needs. With numerous cloud models to build from, hybrid and multi-cloud computing strategies can be widely adaptable, economical and scalable.
Cloud Hosting Specialists
The best part of cloud services – whether public or private – is that you don’t have to make one hard choice either way. For the most part, cloud services can be completely customized according to your business needs, especially in a dedicated server hosting environment. You can use the public cloud to access some software your staff uses while saving sensitive data to a private cloud.
Ready to learn if the private cloud or cloud hosting on dedicated servers are the best option for your business? Contact us today at Summit Hosting – with over ten years of experience, we’re happy to offer our expert advice and consult with you to help you discover the perfect cloud solution for you.