In the past few years, cloud computing has gone from a buzzword to a necessity. In the wake of the pandemic, having business applications and data accessible from anywhere is a must if you want your company to be resilient.

Cloud technology adoption has skyrocketed in recent years, with the cloud now representing approximately 94% of all datacenter workloads. But adopting cloud-based tools is just one part of the decision-making process when a company migrates to a virtual environment.

There are two distinct types of clouds you can use, a public cloud or a private cloud.

Public Cloud

The public cloud is what most people are used to. You sign up for Dropbox or Microsoft 365 and the account you’re using is in the public cloud. This means that your account and data are on a server that has many other business accounts and data on it as well.

The software running the account is overseen by the SaaS company that you pay each month for a subscription.

Private Cloud

The private cloud is still internet accessible, but your business applications and data are the only ones on the server. It’s private, meaning that you don’t have to share resources with any other business, you have complete control over your virtualized server.

You also have more control over the software itself and how it’s protected.

Both public and private cloud have their pros and cons. One might be a better fit for your Columbus area company, just depending upon your needs and whether you value security and control over less work and lower costs.

Comparing Private vs Public Cloud

Start Up Costs

When it comes to the cost to get started with a new software, the public cloud is the cheaper option.

With a public cloud, you simply sign up and pay the subscription fee of the SaaS provider. They’re hosting the software, so all you have to do is log in and you can begin using it right away.

If you have a private cloud, you have more upfront costs. You will first need to purchase or rent a dedicated server that can host the applications, then you will need to pay a licensing fee to purchase the software and have it loaded onto your dedicated server.

Network Security

Many large enterprises as well as government organizations will use a private cloud because they want to have complete control over their data security. When you are the only one using your dedicated server, you have control over how you secure network traffic and can take additional security measures that might not be available in a public cloud.

You’re at the mercy of the security measures put in place by the SaaS provider if you use a public cloud. And while large companies like, Google and Microsoft have pretty stringent measures, smaller SaaS providers may not.

Choice of Applications

Using a private cloud means you have fewer options when it comes to cloud applications. Not all tools offer what they call an on-premises version, which basically means you’re loading their software onto your own dedicated server and running it yourself.

This means you might find a great tool you like, such as Slack, but find out that it can’t be used in a private cloud.

Just about every cloud application you find online is already set up in the public cloud.

Control Over Your Cloud Ecosystem

When you’re using different applications in the public cloud, you have less control over how each different application might interact with another. Additionally, each may have differing security capabilities, making it harder to use a single set of security policies across them all.

The private cloud gives you much more control over how you connect your data being used in different applications, customize interactions between apps, and more. You can also more easily apply standard security across your entire cloud ecosystem.

Ongoing Administrative Costs

When you’re running a private cloud, the software updates and administrative tasks are on you. You are responsible to solve any problems that might come up and to ensure users can connect to your cloud when needed.

Your cloud server needs to be maintained regularly, which includes ensuring the server operating system is kept updated.

When you use the public cloud, you have no server administration costs. If something goes wrong or a user can’t connect, you contact the SaaS provider and it’s their job to fix the problem.

Control Over Outages

One of the things you have to deal with when using the public cloud is outages, such as this one that took down Google services for nearly an hour in December.

When a SaaS provider goes down, all you can do is wait and hope the outage doesn’t last too long. You’re fairly powerless to do anything to get your software back online.

On the other hand, when you have a private cloud, you control the server. This means in the case of an outage, you can address the issue right away to get your applications back up and running.

Find the Best Public & Private Cloud Solutions With AhelioTech

We are experts when it comes to cloud technology, and this includes helping you run an efficient and secure private cloud server.

Contact us today for a free quote. Call 614-333-0000 or reach out online.