Organizations moving to cloud environments have increased significantly, especially as more businesses transition to remote work. A cloud environment offers a variety of benefits for organizations of all sizes. Moving your business to a cloud environment ultimately requires the assessment of various cloud computing models, but also involves deciding which cloud environment is going to best suit your company’s needs.
There are two primary types of cloud environments – public cloud and private cloud. Recently, hybrid clouds have become something that organizations are also exploring. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but first it’s important to understand the differences between the various cloud computing cloud types.
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Public Clouds:
The public cloud is essentially the internet. In public cloud, businesses share on premise and access to IT infrastructures including shared servers, storage, API’s, development capabilities and more; often provided by a cloud service provider or CSP. In a public cloud environment, each company shares the same infrastructure as the companies that have subscribed to that public cloud.
Public cloud environments offer organizations cost efficiency at the potential risk of security and limited flexibility. However, with a public cloud environment, you have access to state-of-the-art IT infrastructure without having to purchase it and hire an IT staff. For some organizations that benefit does not outweigh the main disadvantage of a public cloud, and that is the loss in advanced security and privacy.
If your organizations do not have security concerns, then a public cloud environment may be best for your business.
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Private Clouds:
The private cloud means you are not sharing any on premise or IT infrastructures with anyone. Our PCI compliance Cloud is built on a private cloud environment offering the most significant advantages of private clouds, the enhanced security in managing security threats and the customizations available to fit business needs. The security alone in a private cloud is a key advantage for any organization in combating cybercrime, but organizations need to realize the costs.
With private cloud environments the organization retains the responsibility to manage their cloud environment which often requires additional resources and added costs. This is something that organizations need to consider when looking to leverage a private cloud environment.
A private cloud is great for organizations with security concerns and looking to keep data and IT security a top priority.
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Hybrid Clouds:
Hybrid cloud environments are a mix of both public and private cloud environments. This makes up one of the key advantages of leveraging a hybrid cloud environment. In combining both public and private cloud environments you can create a cloud solution with a variety of benefits including flexibility, scalability, security & cost efficiency.
However, with those benefits comes complex integration challenges and costs which sometimes become very costly over time. It’s important organizations are constantly assessing costs ensuring resources are properly allocated across the hybrid cloud environment.
Choosing a Cloud Environment
Choosing the right cloud environment for your organization is going to depend on your business needs and resources available. In choosing an environment organizations should also consider how seamlessly it integrates with current systems and software. Partnering with a Managed IT Services company will help ensure what ever environment your organization moves to, that you will be prepared and as secure as possible.
Contact RKON’s Cloud experts for questions on moving to the cloud.
