The search for the right cloud solution can lead your company in many different directions. One popular option is a private cloud, an architecture that’s used by organizations large and small, in many different industries. But just what is a private cloud?
A private cloud is simply an interconnected series of resources within an environment that’s used by only one organization. Whether you’re utilizing storage or computer power, a private cloud means your company isn’t sharing those resources with any other users. The capacities within that private cloud are available only to you.
At its foundation, a private cloud is similar to – and often still built upon – a traditional enterprise-owned data center. But rather than managing those servers and other components individually, private cloud technology enables better utilization by aggregating the capabilities of all those single resources into one efficient environment.
One key feature of a private cloud is the ability to maintain tight security controls. Unlike other cloud solutions designed to serve multiple tenants, a private cloud can be configured around the security posture that best fits your organization’s unique needs. As businesses face increased costs and reputational harm from data breaches and other security incidents, the need to deploy and maintain effective protective measures is key in today’s threat-heavy landscape. Even as IT budgets remain lean, Cisco’s 2019 CISO Benchmark Survey (landing page: https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1970008 – actual survey: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/m/digital/elq-cmcglobal/witb/1963786/2019CISOBenchmarkReportCiscoCybersecuritySeries.pdf?ccid=cc000160&dtid=esootr000875&ecid=14396&oid=wprsc015512), revealed that security remains a priority, with 44% of respondents saying their company increased investment in security defense technologies or solutions over the previous year.
In addition, a private cloud may be built around the need to solve specific business challenges or to meet strict requirements. For example, a firm may have extensive data storage requirements or the need to power applications or processes that leverage niche types of hardware. These targeted use cases may be outside the normal capabilities of other cloud architectures but because a private cloud serves only one organization, their decisions don’t need to be weighed against anyone’s purposes but their own.
Business needs are not only in a constant state of change, they’re evolving faster than ever. Compute and storage requirements are also shifting, leading to new requirements that increasingly make private cloud a good solution for many enterprises.
Many legacy architectures came into being with an infrastructure of several servers. As an organization grew and their needs became more complex, they controlled their resource availability by adding capacity as necessary. However, because components were managed individually, businesses didn’t have the ability to optimize usage across the full array of their environment.
The addition of private cloud technology addressed those shortcomings by consolidating the management of the infrastructure into one holistic resource. Companies could more effectively take advantage of available space and power, enabling them to minimize capital expenditures for new hardware. Maintenance activities were also streamlined because fewer spare resources were needed to fill in when a server had to be taken offline for repairs or upgrades. Instead, cloud technology made it possible to shift workloads and applications around to compensate for the reduction without negatively impacting the company’s overall capabilities.
Private clouds can be built to support companies of every size range and to meet nearly every use case.
A company that has its own dedicated servers and maintains them in a single on-premise data center has a private cloud. Bigger organizations may boost their resilience and performance capabilities by maintaining multiple data centers in different regions, but those assets and resources can all be brought together and made available under a single private cloud.
Hosted private cloud is also available, where enterprises purchase or rent server resources from a cloud hosting provider. The hardware is housed at one or more of the vendor’s data centers, with servers and other resources tied together with cloud technology. As long as the environment remains dedicated to a single enterprise, it’s still a private cloud.
Want to know about private cloud and if it’s right for your business? Contact a Carousel expert now.
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