Over the past few years, the number of infrastructure hosting options available to companies has multiplied. In the old days, the only option for hosting for companies was to build a server room or data center on-site. Today, companies can choose from bare metal servers, cloud servers, platform products as a service, and private clouds. Today, we will learn about private cloud and when to use private cloud.
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What is a Private Cloud?
A private cloud refers to any cloud solution that is exclusively used by an organization. In a private cloud, you do not share cloud computing resources with any other organization. Data center resources can be located on-premises or operated off-site by a third-party vendor. Computing resources are isolated and distributed over a secure private network and are not shared with other customers.
The private cloud is customizable to meet your organization’s own security and business needs. With greater visibility and control over the infrastructure, organizations can operate compliance-sensitive IT workloads without compromising the security and performance previously only achieved. with dedicated on-site data centers.
How does a Private Cloud work?
To thoroughly understand how a private cloud works, it is important to review the concept of virtualization, as it forms the backbone of cloud computing. Virtualization is the process of creating virtual versions of things like operating systems, storage devices, servers, or network resources, all hosted in a cloud environment. IT organizations leverage virtualization practices for greater efficiency and economies of scale.
A private cloud server is an isolated (also known as a single-tenant) and secure environment made up of pooled resources from multiple servers using virtualization. This type of cloud is only available to certain organizations, not the general public, and ensures that those organizations are sufficiently isolated from each other. It is usually offered as a monthly lease. As for who manages these environments, that may depend on who has formal ownership of the private cloud server. As mentioned before, private cloud servers can be on-premises or hosted on the cloud provider’s external data center/infrastructure.
When to use Private Cloud?
Private cloud best suited for:
- Highly regulated industries such as financial institutions, healthcare and government agencies.
- Sensitive data
- High-tech companies that require strong security and control over their IT workloads and underlying infrastructure.
- Large enterprises require advanced data center technology to operate efficiently and cost-effectively
- Organizations can afford to invest in high-performance and ready-made technologies
The advantages & Disadvantages of Private Cloud
Advantages
Essentially, the key advantages of a private cloud are similar to those of a public cloud platform, with additional capabilities that come with full control over the resources of the physical hardware layer.
- Organizations with consistent and relatively predictable resource needs should consider using a private cloud.
- Most servers are underutilized, and virtualization provides private cloud users with improved resource utilization, meaning workloads can be deployed to a single physical server as service needs change.
- This improved flexibility and resource utilization can help organizations ensure the performance of their applications while reducing costs by getting the most out of their servers. A private cloud environment will not only save money compared to a traditional on-premises environment, but for some organizations, it will cost less than a public cloud environment.
- While any cloud environment requires a strong firewall and antivirus protection, a private cloud runs on certain physical machines, making it easier to ensure physical security. Cloud access is also more secure in this setting because a private cloud environment is accessed via private and protected network lines rather than the public Internet.
- When you deal with managed data, such as financial, healthcare, or credit card data, there are strict rules about where the data is stored, who can process it, and who can handle it as well as how the data is protected.
Disadvantages
- With a private cloud, you have to purchase all of the cloud infrastructures. So the private cloud is an expensive solution with a relatively high TCO compared to the public cloud alternatives, especially for short-term use cases.
- Has limited access to the private cloud considering the high-security measures in place.
- Your private cloud’s ability to scale is constrained by the amount of infrastructure you have. It’s possible that the infrastructure won’t be very scalable to handle erratic demand.
Conclusion
A private Cloud can be a great solution for high-end businesses that need scalable and reliable storage options, as well as a fixed cash flow to support a high-end network like so. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of what a private cloud is, its outstanding features, benefits and limitations specifically to be able to choose the right form for your business.