Over the past fifteen years, cloud services have become ubiquitous, now accounting for over 60 per cent of corporate data storage with the global market predicted to grow year on year at a rate of around 15%. However, despite this popularity, a ‘cloud only’ strategy is not the only approach worth considering, which begs the question: what are the other options and what is the right choice for my organisation?
Private clouds
From a security perspective, a private cloud approach looks best on paper because it means you are the sole tenant with exclusive access to the cloud resources and no other users able to compromise data. This therefore minimises the risk of malicious breaches.
When it comes to compliance, private clouds also score well. Public clouds can assist with some data compliance regulations. However, private clouds provide better control over requirements. This means companies facing government, financial or healthcare regulations can more easily enforce compliance.
Private clouds enable a high degree of customisation, allowing you to configure hardware, software, and settings to match your exact requirements. This level of control ensures optimal performance, efficient resource utilisation, and enhanced bandwidth capabilities. From a cost perspective, private clouds offer predictable long-term expenses. Unlike usage-based pricing models that can fluctuate due to provider rates, private clouds operate on a fixed infrastructure cost. This provides clear visibility into resource usage and associated expenses, simplifying budgeting and financial planning while making lifetime infrastructure costs easier to forecast.
Public clouds
Public clouds offer several significant benefits, scalability being perhaps the most important. They allow resources to be adjusted flexibly to meet demand, ensuring access to additional compute power, storage, or networking whenever needed. In contrast, private cloud platforms are restricted by the limitations of their on-premise hardware.
Reliability is another strength of public clouds, delivering consistent and dependable services with minimal downtime—Service Level Agreements (SLAs) often promise 99.99% uptime. Public clouds can also help companies meet their regulatory compliance requirements, particularly when it comes to data handling.
Cost considerations play a critical role. Public clouds typically provide a subscription-based model with hourly or monthly billing, eliminating the need for large upfront investments in software licenses or hardware. Studies suggest that public clouds can deliver up to a 30% cost reduction compared to hyperscalers when assessed against standardised workload benchmarks.
Multi-cloud versus Hybrid cloud
Multi-cloud uses multiple cloud services across various providers, integrating a combination of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to suit specific needs. This approach allows IT leaders to bypass vendor lock-in, select top-tier offerings from each provider, and design a resilient, customised infrastructure.
In contrast, hybrid cloud combines a private cloud with at least one public service. This benefits companies that want to safeguard sensitive data on-site while also taking advantage of the vast computing resources of public cloud services for less sensitive operations. This means organisations can enjoy high levels of data privacy and compliance as well as rapid scalability, according to demand.
At the same time, the hybrid approach improves disaster recovery by enabling IT teams to replicate data across both private and public execution venues. At the same time, outsourcing provides access to specialised expertise, enabling users to address their unique requirements effectively.
From an innovation perspective, the hybrid model offers access to the latest technologies, such as AI, big data analytics and machine learning, using the public cloud without the need for significant upfront investment in technical capacity.
This explains why the hybrid cloud approach has become popular in a range of sectors, such as finance, where the need to process huge volumes of data securely on a private platform is balanced by the ability to use public clouds for analytics. Or digital marketing, which relies on customer insights and agility and is affected by seasonal peaks in demand. Hybrid cloud enables operational scalability for peak activity, combined with real time consumer data analysis.
The right fit
Ultimately, every organisation is different with competing needs and resources. Hybrid cloud models offer a broad scope of choices that architects can tailor to suit their organisation, so it is well worth the time and effort to research these.
Evaluate how your business operastes, where it keeps its data lives and how it uses it. Consider your compliance responsibilities and whether you need to scale to meet peaks in demand. Assess what developments, such as AI, are coming down the pipe and how you can best accommodate them. When you have full visibility of your infrastructure and the demands placed on this, you’ll know which cloud model suits best.