Advantages and disadvantages of private cloud

Private clouds are growing in popularity, primarily due to the need for increased data security. Organizations across industries, including education, retail, and government, are choosing private cloud setups to fulfill business use cases involving workloads containing sensitive information and to comply with data privacy and compliance requirements.

According to a report by Technavio (link resides outside ibm.com), the private cloud services market size is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.71% and increase by $619.08 billion from 2023 to 2028.

The need for a private cloud setup is also closely linked to a hybrid cloud approach that is an essential part of the enterprise-to-business digital transformation journey, i.e. integrating on-premises, private cloud and public cloud into a single, flexible IT infrastructure. there is. According to IBM Innovation Index: State of the Cloud According to the report, 71% of business executives surveyed agreed that it is difficult to realize the full potential of digital transformation without a solid hybrid cloud strategy.

Business and IT leaders should examine the pros and cons of private cloud to determine how it can deliver business value to their organizations.

What is a private cloud??

Before examining the pros and cons of a private cloud, let’s take a quick look at the essential features and basic cloud architecture components.

Private Cloud is a cloud computing environment in which all resources are separated and operated by only one organization. It may be hosted on the infrastructure of a public cloud service provider (CSP), either on-premises within a company’s physical location, off-site on infrastructure owned or leased by a third party, or in one of its data centers.

A private cloud combines the key benefits of cloud computing—mainly on-demand access to computing resources (e.g., cloud servers, data storage, networking capabilities, automation, software, and data analytics tools)—with the security and control of on-premises IT infrastructure. . .

Your organization can take full responsibility for the operation of your private cloud, including maintenance and overall management. However, most companies choose to outsource some or all of their private cloud management to third-party providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.

4 types of private clouds

There are four main types of private clouds to choose from:

1. On-premise private cloud: An on-premises private cloud is hosted within a company’s on-site data center and managed by the IT team. In an on-premises private cloud, the organization is responsible for purchasing and maintaining all hardware, software, security features, and other infrastructure.

2. Virtual Private Cloud: Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) provides an isolated private cloud environment within a public cloud. A VPC allows organizations to use shared CSP resources to run code, host websites, and more in a secure setting.

3. Hosted private cloud (also called private cloud hosting): Hosted private clouds run off-premises on CSP servers. It differs from a VPC in that it is an environment with dedicated servers (also known as bare metal servers) used by a single organization. In a hosted private cloud, the cloud provider owns and manages resources such as cloud storage maintenance, upgrades, and security management tools.

4. Managed private cloud: A managed private cloud typically consists of physical hardware hosted in a service provider’s data center. However, CSPs also provide managed services for private cloud infrastructure hosted in an enterprise’s data center. In this setup, the CSP performs maintenance, upgrades, support, and management.

Public, private, hybrid cloud

Besides private cloud computing, there are two main cloud computing models: private cloud and hybrid cloud.

In a public cloud environment, IT infrastructure is provided as virtual resources over the Internet under a pay-as-you-go or subscription-based pricing model. Public cloud providers take full responsibility for the data centers, hardware, and infrastructure on which their customers’ workloads run, providing high-bandwidth network connectivity to ensure high performance and fast access to applications and data.

Unlike the single-tenant architecture of private clouds, public clouds offer a multi-tenant setup that enables multi-cloud. Efficiently shares scalable computing resources (e.g. hardware, storage, networking devices) accessed through a user-friendly interface.

In a public cloud, each tenant’s data is logically separated and isolated from data associated with other tenants. In comparison, private clouds provide an enhanced layer of cloud security through network firewalls, access controls, data encryption, and authentication methods such as identity and access management (IAM) tools.

Most large enterprises today choose a hybrid cloud approach that combines on-premises, private cloud, public cloud, and edge setups. Enterprise organizations today are merging hybrid cloud and multicloud. This means avoiding vendor lock-in by using services from more than one cloud provider and choosing best-of-breed offerings from multiple cloud providers.

For a more detailed look at these types of cloud deployment models, read the blog post “Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud vs. Hybrid Cloud: What’s the Difference?”

Virtualization and other native cloud technologies

Public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud are all based on cloud computing and virtualization technologies that are core to enterprise IT architecture.

Virtualization uses software called a hypervisor to create an abstraction layer on top of a computer’s hardware, allowing the hardware components of a single computer (such as processors, memory, and storage) to be split into multiple virtual machines (VMs).

In public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud settings, automation tools run on top of virtual environments and perform tasks such as container orchestration with Kubernetes, resource provisioning for workload deployment and updates, performance monitoring, disaster recovery, and more. Administrators use management software tools, such as APIs, to control and manage their IT infrastructure.

Cloud services: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS

Private, public, and hybrid clouds can all run cloud computing services, such as:

IaaSor infrastructure as a serviceis on-demand access to cloud-hosted IT infrastructure to run applications and workloads in the cloud. IaaS allows organizations to scale infrastructure resources up and down as needed, providing capacity to handle spiking workloads.

PaaS or Platform as a Serviceis on-demand access to a full-service cloud platform for developing, running, and managing applications without the cost, complexity, and flexibility that often comes with building and maintaining a platform on-premises.

SaaS or software as a serviceis on-demand access to ready-to-use software apps (e.g. Adobe Creative Suite, Slack). SaaS offloads all software development and infrastructure management to the cloud service provider, including maintaining server hardware and software, managing user access and security, storing and managing data, implementing upgrades, and more.

Advantages of Private Cloud

Private cloud offers a variety of business benefits to organizations, including:

1. control: private cloud The many benefits of cloud computing (such as on-demand access to cloud resources, elasticity, scalability, and ease of service delivery) while giving organizations complete control over their environment, including choice of hardware, software apps, and different levels of security. Also provided. .
2. Enhanced Control and Visibility: Private clouds provide organizations with greater control and visibility by storing data and workloads behind a private firewall.
3. Custom: A private cloud allows businesses to customize hardware and software according to their needs. For example, IT teams can tailor their specific data storage and backup requirements to increase overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
4. Enhanced Security: Generally, Private clouds are designed with more important security layers than public clouds. For example, private clouds are highly sought after by businesses in industries such as government and finance that need to protect sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII), from unauthorized users or malicious actors. Private cloud security measures include firewall configurations, virtual private networks (VPNs), data encryption, and authentication mechanisms to help reduce data leaks or cyberattacks. Private clouds also typically include enhanced physical security measures, such as surveillance cameras and security personnel.
5. Compliance: Businesses can customize their private cloud to meet compliance requirements and regulatory standards. This feature is critical for highly regulated businesses as they must comply with data privacy and data sovereignty laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for companies operating in the EU ( Link is external). ibm.com)’s American health service.
6. Predictable and stable costs: Private cloud costs are generally stable and predictable as resources are allocated to meet specific requirements, which can lead to cost savings. This compares to public cloud costs, which can be unpredictable depending on usage, new services, data egress costs, etc.
7. Improved performance: High resource demands can lead to issues such as outages, downtime, or bottlenecks. A private cloud can optimize performance by isolating workloads on dedicated servers. This feature eliminates “noisy neighbor” issues such as latency and other performance interference that can occur in multi-tenant public cloud environments.
8. Modernize legacy applications: The control that a private cloud provides allows for more seamless integration with existing systems. For example, private cloud supports application modernization, that is, the transformation of monolithic legacy applications to cloud applications built on a microservices architecture that supports DevOps methodologies.

Disadvantages of private cloud

While private clouds have many benefits, especially for organizations seeking enhanced controls and security measures, there are some drawbacks to consider.

1. High initial cost and setup: Private clouds have high start-up (initial Capex) costs associated with building, operating, and managing on-premises hardware and infrastructure. Private cloud deployments also require a high level of technical expertise. These drawbacks require organizations to train or hire more IT staff to build, operate, and manage their private cloud infrastructure.
2. Complex and ongoing maintenance: Private clouds can be difficult for organizations to maintain on their own due to tasks such as performance monitoring, software patching, and update planning. Therefore, many organizations choose some level of private cloud management services from CSPs to ensure smooth operational maintenance and reduce maintenance costs.
3. Low scalability: Because private clouds are limited to a limited amount of on-premises resources, they are generally less scalable than public clouds, which offer virtually unlimited scalability. Scaling up in your private cloud requires purchasing more and more hardware and software. However, these drawbacks can be overcome in hybrid cloud settings through cloud bursting, which scales public cloud resources to run workloads when on-premises or private cloud data resources reach their maximum capacity.
4. Limited mobile access: Due to various security features, private clouds can limit mobile user access, which can be a disadvantage for organizations seeking this functionality.

IBM and private cloud

As a leader in hybrid multicloud solutions, IBM helps customers optimize their private cloud solutions to meet their business needs. This means leveraging technologies like generative AI to help automate IT, modernize applications for better ROI, or help build and manage cloud-native applications. On a large scale.

IBM Power Private Cloud Edition provides a cost-effective bundle of powerful software offerings that enable seamless deployment and management of private clouds, simplify security and compliance management, and ensure high availability.

Explore IBM Power Private Cloud editions