The Clouds of Digital Transformation: Private, Public, and Hybrid
Introduction?
A fundamental pillar of the digital transformation ecosystem is undoubtedly clouding computing. When it comes to innovation, cloud computing is an umbrella term, with different technologies, components, approaches and types of applications.?
In fact, there are different types of clouds that are made by people working in the premises of the company. There are some that provide public cloud services for many large-scale businesses to take control of their management. All this helps companies meet business needs by reducing implementation and development cycle times, increasing efficiency, finding new customers and expanding strategic advantages.?
In this article, we will understand their respective role and what happens what public and private cloud network function in the same office environment aka hybrid cloud.?
To ensure that the money and resources allocated to the company's cloud (private or public, depending on the size of the business) are well spent, addressing the needs and having clear objectives of managers and their teams is the most important challenge that IT organizations are facing today.?
According to IDC, annual enterprise spending on IT infrastructure hardware (servers, storage, networking) to build and maintain private clouds in their data centers will rise from $12.5 billion in 2015 to $20.3 billion in 2020.?
Adding the costs of cloud and software applications, as well as IT staff resources required to maintain and extend these “clouds,” spending levels are considerably higher.?
Definitions?
Using a proprietary architecture, private cloud or enterprise cloud is a type of cloud computing that offers similar benefits to public cloud, including scalability and adaptability. Unlike public clouds, a private cloud is dedicated to the needs and goals of a single company rather than multiples organizations.?
A public cloud is where an independent, third-party vendor, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, owns and operates computing resources that customers can access across the Internet. Public cloud users share these resources, a model known as a multi-tenant environment.?
Based on resources and infrastructure already present in an organization's on-premises data center, the private cloud is also developed on a new, separate infrastructure. In both cases, the same company owns and operates its private cloud.?
A hybrid cloud is a model in which a private cloud connects to public cloud infrastructure, allowing an organization to orchestrate workloads between the two environments. In this model, the public cloud becomes an effective extension of the private cloud to form a single uniform cloud. A hybrid cloud deployment requires a high level of compatibility between the underlying software and services used by both public and private clouds.?
Pros and Cons via Comparison?
A correctly implemented private cloud can take home most of the same benefits that can be had with public clouds, such as user self-service and scalability to configure virtual machines (VMs) as needed.??
Private clouds also have the ability to prepare and equip the network with the capacity to provide new services to its users.?
Private clouds are often set up when public clouds are inappropriate or inadequate for a company's needs. For example, a public cloud may not provide the desired level of service availability or uptime that an organization needs.??
In other cases, the risk of hosting a mission-critical workload in the public cloud may exceed a company's risk tolerance, or there may be security or regulatory issues related to using a multi-tenant environment.?
In these cases, an enterprise might opt to invest in a private cloud to realize the benefits of cloud computing while retaining total control and ownership of its environment.?
However, private clouds also have some disadvantages.?
First, private cloud technologies typically require an IT team to follow the architecture and continuous evolution of the data center infrastructure, with a view to continuous improvement.?
As a result, an organization may need to adjust or IT staff for a successful implementation of a private cloud. Whereas, it is a different matter with public cloud, where most of the system and architecture complexity is handled by the cloud provider.?
Another potential disadvantage of private clouds is cost. When a company owns its own private cloud, however, it is responsible for all acquisition, deployment, support and maintenance costs.?
Take a look at this success story –??
Airbnb, being an online marketplace for property owners and travelers to connect with the purpose of renting spaces around the world, doesn’t own any of the properties listed on their services.??
It simply receives commissions from each booking by acting as a broker,?
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A year after it was launched, the company decided to migrate nearly all of its cloud computing functions to amazon web services (AWS) which is a public cloud service provider company.?
AWS, being a giant for their robust scalability and security measures, gave Airbnb the possibility to ramp up more servers without committing to a certain minimum usage. So, Airbnb without having to contact or go through anybody, accelerated exponentially without any setbacks.??
Not only that, with only requiring 15 minutes of platform downtime, the entire database migration to Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) was completed.?
Hybrid cloud, an advantage rather than a compromise?
A hybrid cloud strategy gives businesses the most choice when it comes to what runs. It requires less investment than a private cloud and brings home all the advantages of the public cloud. This is what has led the march towards cloud computing whether it is public cloud or private cloud.?
Private cloud platforms can run virtual machines or containers just as quickly as their public counterparts, supporting agile software development teams and their ongoing integration/development/release needs, just with a fixed cost of hardware.?
For any large enterprise, the application portfolio will be diverse enough that some applications will work best in a public cloud, while others will be better suited for a private cloud.?
By taking a hybrid cloud approach, most likely using a platform that simplifies the management of applications across multiple locations by aligning on a single management plane, companies can maximize deployment flexibility for individual applications, whether public or private, whether cloud or hosts them.?
When Cloud Implementation Fails?
The root cause of the vast majority of mistakes people make when trying to implement the enterprise cloud is the limitations companies encounter when trying to build cloud solutions, relying on non-aligned hardware and software components:?
1. Building the wrong cloud for the wrong people?
According to a study by RightScale, 70% of private clouds fail within two years. Many private clouds fail when they are built without fully considering the needs of applications and app owners. You need your cloud to be application focused. The cloud should leverage pre-built profiles and templates for core applications to simplify and reduce management costs.?
2. Lack of agility in adding and reallocating capabilities and resources.?
A study by Gartner found that 40% of private clouds are not scalable or flexible enough to meet the needs of the business. Many well-defined private clouds fail when they become too focused on building the perfect cloud with elements that don't naturally go together, making upgrades and expansion expensive and risky. Furthermore, the cost recovery model is often not aligned with the growth or success of the service brought to the cloud and, therefore, financing this growth becomes a major issue.?
3. Non-aligned systems of hardware and software components?
A study by Flexera found that 30% of organizations have abandoned their private cloud projects. The root cause of all these errors is the limitation enterprises face when attempting to build private cloud solutions. This approach, which is different from traditional virtualized environments, forces trade-offs in terms of functionality, flexibility and operational efficiency and is at odds with the basic purpose of adopting a cloud approach.?
Choosing the right provider is critical as the right multi-cloud deployment will offer:??
With Navcara, organizations realize the potential of multi-cloud while benefiting from enterprise-class security and resiliency. Explore our integrated portfolio of SaaS solutions that help you build, run, manage and secure all your applications on any cloud.?
Conclusion?
Private clouds are rarely adopted as the sole enterprise platform for managing workloads. The public cloud usually fulfills its role for scalability and ease of deployment, while the private cloud must be "just enough", must not be overbuilt or intended to supplant the public cloud, and must exist within a broad ecosystem of hybrid cloud, not built to be self-sufficient and business friendly.?