Enterprise Solutions Explained: What’s the Difference between Private and Public Cloud?

If you are considering the best IT infrastructure solutions for your business, you have likely come across the ‘private cloud versus public cloud’ debate. On all corners of the internet, IT enthusiasts grapple over which is better for businesses, but the reality is, it depends almost entirely on your business’s IT needs.

Before you can enter the debate and assess which is best for your business, you will need to know the intricate differences between each one. For more information, explore managed IT & cloud services from Ntiva.

Public Clouds

Public clouds are owned and maintained by a public, third-party service provider. These providers will house the cloud services of many businesses, charging each one for the cloud services they provide.

This means that the costs of the infrastructure and running the cloud are spread across all the businesses, thus keeping costs down and allowing individual businesses a low-cost affordable service. This makes public clouds particularly appealing to small businesses.

Another aspect of public clouds that appeal to small businesses, is that because the cloud providers manage the cloud services for a vast number of businesses, they already have large-scale cloud infrastructures in place. This means that when a small business scales up, it can do so using the existing cloud provider, with all the same protections and configurations with minimal hassle.

Public clouds are also exceptionally reliable. Cloud providers manage a huge network of servers. If one fails, another can take its place, protecting the cloud system against failure.

One major drawback in public cloud hosting solutions are that each customer and business has to use the same infrastructure. As a result, public cloud options often offer limited personalization and configuration choices. The individual protections are also coordinated by the cloud provider, with little room for customisation.

Private Clouds

A private cloud is a cloud hosting solution which is maintained by a single company. It might house a company intranet or data behind a firewall on-site or externally, however, it is up to the company itself to maintain the cloud on a private network dedicated solely to that enterprise.

On-Site Private Clouds

On-site private clouds are housed on the company’s business premises. These are often small in scale and is often only used to house applications which require the utmost control and security. Because on-site private clouds are operated and maintained by the company’s IT department, they allow for unlimited configurability and personalized security measures.

However, having the IT department maintain and operate the cloud will incur significant operating costs, which could put small businesses under pressure.

Externally-Hosted Private Cloud

It is possible to have an externally-hosted private cloud. This would be when a third-party provider hosts the private cloud and manages the day-to-day maintenance of the cloud, as well as the security provisions, but the provider will provide cloud facilities exclusively for the business.

For businesses particularly concerned with privacy and security, this option is safer than a public cloud. It is also more expensive than a public cloud.