Cloud Hopping: Choosing Between Public, Private Or Hybrid Clouds

As more businesses look to move their IT needs to cloud hosting environments industry insiders point to a future rise in private clouds. A move from public cloud hosting to private clouds can enable firms to provide access for individual departments and give the business more control over its IT operations. However, simply because business owners are considering cloud hosting operations it does not mean they understand the technology they are looking at. Many are uncertain about whether they need public or private cloud hosting especially as cloud technology is developing at such a rapid rate. Larger enterprises are more likely to adopt cloud hosting on either a public or private basis faster than small and medium sized enterprises, simply because they have the resources to understand just what cloud environments can do to improve their business. Larger businesses will generally host their private clouds on their own in-house data center allowing them to tailor it to the individual needs of their business and departments. Hosting on their own data centers also gives businesses full control over the cloud including security and maintenance. For them hosting in-house offers flexibility and control but what about small business? For the small business owner the investment needed to set up their own in-house data center is just too great for them to even consider it. This then means using an external provider and giving up control over their cloud environment, leaving it in the hands of the hosting company. This is not necessarily a bad thing as hosting providers are invariably better placed to invest in maintenance and security than many individual companies opting for an in-house setup. The problem with private cloud hosting is that many of the benefits of cloud computing are lost once it is placed behind a company firewall. Yet many businesses are wary of choosing the public cloud option because of security concerns especially over sensitive and personal data. However, there is a third option and that is hybrid cloud computing. Currently hybrid clouds form around a quarter of all business clouds and are set to become the most popular choice come 2012. What a hybrid cloud provides is the benefits of both private and public clouds offering increased flexibility and the ability to tailor it to your business needs. The way in which a hybrid cloud operates is diverse but can include the following: • Create on a public cloud but install on a private onern• Create on a private cloud but install on a public onern• Install on a public cloud initially and move to a private one laterrn• Install on a private cloud initially and then move to a public one laterrn• Share across both private and public; also known as cloudburstingrn• Keep private, personal and sensitive date on a private cloud and all other applications on a public cloudrn• Use one cloud or numerous clouds as backups for other clouds. As you can see hybrid cloud environments offer a great deal of flexibility and with the further benefit that cloud hosting will cut IT costs whilst being easier to manage. Currently hybrid cloud services are few and far between; likewise private clouds are not easy to come by either. However, as the uptake for hybrid clouds increases it is likely we will see private clouds become a thing of the past. Whilst a private cloud may make sound business sense on paper they are not helpful in promoting all that cloud computing has to offer and in turn affect the level of uptake from businesses of all sizes. Hybrid clouds it would seem are the perfect replacement for private cloud environments. Business owners just need to be persuaded to adopt them.