There have been high profile cases in the past year of big businesses leaving public cloud services, or spreading their data across multiple public clouds.

There will always be an argument between increasing or decreasing dependency on the public cloud. The reality is, your stance will be completely determined by your business model and specific needs.

The draw of the public crowd is the ability to finance your IT services on a pay-per-use model, being able to spin up a solution rapidly, and the ability to upscale or downscale based on instant capacity requirements. This is great to a certain degree, but when it comes to having more control over your data, or running many concurrent powerful processes, the public cloud can fall short.

You may have started your journey in the public cloud but be rethinking your IT structure because it hasn’t quite worked out. Perhaps you need more visibility over your data, or more control over where it’s stored. There are invaluable capabilities within the private cloud, whether this is hosted on site or in a private environment: management visibility, control, security and privacy. You may also choose to locate off-site but in close proximity, enabling speedy physical access.

Don’t Forget Option Three

There are three options in cloud computing: Public Cloud, Private Cloud and Hybrid Cloud.

Public Cloud:

Services are provided over the internet by shared infrastructure located offsite. These services are more vulnerable than private clouds but provide the greatest efficiency.

Private Cloud:

Services and infrastructure are on a private network. These offer the highest level of security and control but must be maintained independently by the business.

Hybrid Cloud:

Services are spread between public and private clouds depending on what is best suited to each aspect of the business. Each different platform must be kept track of, managed, and maintained to communicate with the rest of the business. Existing IT assets can be repurposed, while the public cloud can be relied upon for its flexibility.

A Private Cloud from a Service Provider

If you don’t have the resources in-house to manage anything other than the public cloud, but want the rewards of the private cloud, you could turn to a cloud service provider. They will manage and maintain their own cloud in a secure data centre and lease out access to this on a pay-as-you-go model. It is always vital to check a provider’s credentials and that they are using data centres adhering to GDPR and ISO standards.

By moving to the cloud with a private provider, they will often handle the required data transfer and management of this process for you, you will have access to their support services and they will ensure the upkeep of your peripheral equipment.

Before You Leave the Public Cloud

Perform an audit of what you want from your cloud service; what resources do you have to manage your IT, how sensitive is your data, how geographically close to your data would you like to be, and anything else that’s relevant to your business.

If you know exactly what you want to get out of the cloud, you will be in a perfect position to select your next move and continue on your cloud journey.