What are the Differences Between Public and Private Clouds
You've been using
"public cloud" services for years. Basically, when you use a
service over the internet you're using a "public cloud"
service. Here are some of the more obvious
characteristics:
- You're accessing the service via a browser.
- You know you're connecting to some data center somewhere, but you really don't care where it is.
- You can access the service from anywhere that you connect to the internet and lately you've noticed that you can access it just as easily from your handheld smartphone as you can from your iPad, your laptop, or your desktop computer.
- While many other people may use the same service, your use of it is "private" to you and your company, and you can add company members simply by signing them up for the service.
Take a walk down to the room where your
computer network servers are set up. Look at all the servers,
network storage cabinets, data backup devices and everything else
you've bought to run your business network.
Think about the next time you're going to have to invest to upgrade (replace) all that equipment. Think of how much you're spending on electricity, air conditioning, the room itself and the people you have on staff that have to spend their time making sure all this stuff keeps working.
Now think about how nice it would be to have someone else taking care of all of this stuff. You know you need it, that it helps you run your company more profitably, but wouldn't you prefer if someone else was running it all for you? And if they could give you better service from all of it and cost you less, wouldn't that be nice too?
Welcome to private cloud computing.
With a private cloud, all of the servers that support your business are located in a professionally operated data center where that's all they do for a living. Backups? They take care of that. Firewall? Their responsibility, and they sign guarantees on that. Need more capacity? Simply request it with a click of your mouse. Support for popular and proprietary applications. Your data center, just not on your premises. Less expensive, better service, quality support.