The battle of the Hatfields versus the McCoys doesn’t match the intensity of the feud between the advocates in the debate over the public cloud versus the private cloud. More than enough literature exists about the public cloud and its advantages to businesses as far as flexibility, scalability, and cost efficiency. However, the advocates of the public cloud and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are often proselytizing for self-interest, as they are often stakeholders in PaaS companies.
The Private Cloud Defined
The private cloud is a computing infrastructure using a distinct cloud-based environment accessed by a single, specific organization. An internal private cloud resides behind your company’s firewall, whereas an external private cloud is a private space, only accessible to your company, and its employees are located in a provider’s data center.
The Truth about Private Clouds
Advocates of the private cloud configuration have many legitimate concerns about migrating to the public cloud. These concerns about the private cloud are valid, but a well-informed PaaS provider may eliminate them. Companies should interview advocates of both infrastructures before deciding. Here we’ll examine four main concerns to keep in mind when it comes to the private cloud.
The Importance of Your Data
Since data and applications are the lifeblood of any business, the security of these items is crucial. Hosted solutions in the public cloud have security protocols provided by the vendor, yet the security of a private cloud is up to the company’s IT department, although a company might have certain security procedures included by contract. For the most part, yielding control of security to a public cloud provider requires an extraordinary leap of faith from their clients, and a private cloud would eliminate this requirement.
Business in Foreign Countries
Unknown to many is that many EU countries insist that public cloud hosting companies keep a client company’s data in servers located within their borders. These harsh data-sovereignty laws restrict many public cloud providers from being able to send data across borders. With a private cloud accessible from your company’s field office in Prague, the support of your Czech regional office becomes simplified.
Who Speaks Your Language?
Your development teams created your legacy programs to operate best in your environment, and the selection of a programming language was an important decision based on business factors. A particular programming language may serve you best, but the reality is that not all PaaS providers support every programing language. However, with a private cloud under your control, you make the decisions of which languages you choose to support. If needed, multiple-language support is doable with a private cloud. It’s your cloud, so it speaks your language.
Staying Compliant
Every business would rather comply with government regulations than battle over fines and penalties. However, the public cloud has to deal with nearly every government on earth and being compliant is nearly impossible.
Yet private cloud infrastructures allow companies to comply at the company level and not at the data level. This keeps governments from prying into confidential data. Think NSA getting public cloud data from Microsoft. With a private cloud, agencies need a warrant to see your data.
Organizations can still gain the agility, scalability and lower costs associated with public cloud computing by using a private cloud. With the private cloud model, companies also gain more control over security, architectural language and government compliance.