Private or Public Cloud? The Debate is Over, Go Hybrid!

Introduction:

A debate has been going on forever on which cloud model organizations should adopt whether it be private or public cloud (Rogers, 2016). Not only are vendors and customers alike coming to the realization that it is a stale debate (Seshachala, 2015) but industry experts are now calling it the wrong debate, pleading all involved parties to end it (Guido, 2015).

Public Cloud:

Is a computing model where shared computing services hosted, managed, owned, and operated by a cloud provider are leased to customers as consumable resources using a per as you go model (Mell, 2011). Public cloud offering does not require a high initial investment nor a local Datacenter while provides instant access to applications and platforms never the less all organization data is hosted at the cloud provider resulting in very limited control. An example of a public cloud would be Amazon AWS.

Private Cloud:

Is a computing model where dedicated computing services hosted, managed, owned and operated internally is automated, orchestrated, and provided to IT and end users in self-service model (Huth & Cebula, 2011).  Private cloud offering provides full control of data which enhances security, privacy, compliance, and visibility with automation/orchestration/self-service capabilities to lower overall business OPEX never the less a high initial investment is required for all Datacenter components on top of continuous management and support. An example of a private cloud would be OpenStack.

The Debate:

Pro-Public cloud experts argue that pay for what you use model, speed of access to resources, and auto-scaling capabilities are only provided with the public cloud offering while pro-private cloud experts argue that security, privacy, and control are only achieved with a private cloud offering (Racca, 2015).

Wrong Debate:

Though Public and Private cloud offerings share many capabilities yet they are complementary to each other rather than in competition (Cutts, 2015). The public cloud harnesses the capabilities of huge IT Datacenters with very advanced IoT, AI, Big Data, and cloud applications allowing businesses to make better decisions, have more insight and digitally innovate.

The private cloud uses automation, orchestration, and self-service capabilities to enhance utilization and provide customization to business departments while ensuring security, compliance, and privacy.

True, both public and private cloud models offer IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and XaaS (Anything as a Service) never the less deciding factors are not based solely on those services but rather are build on business requirements, needs, and  strategy. Imagine building a transparent IT environment where security classified data is automatically placed on your private cloud while less critical data is moved to the cloud with all the advantages of both models … Imagine no more.

Hybrid Cloud:

It is not a matter of Either/or but rather we have technically advanced to where both public and private cloud models can be modeled into a single offering “Hybrid Cloud” providing the best of both worlds (Samuels, 2016). IT can now determine which workload from which business can be hosted locally or publicly based on its specific requirements and needs giving the right balance between security, cost, and performance. An Example of hybrid cloud models would be Amazon AWS with VMware vCloud and Microsoft Azure with Azure Stack.

Conclusion:

Seems odd enough that Clouded decisions are now the way to go. We can finally say that the cloud debate is over (Whitehouse, 2016) not because public prevailed over private or the other way around but because we have realized that the power of both can be harnessed in a hybrid flexible model called the Hybrid Cloud.

References

Cutts, P., 2015. Private Versus Public Cloud: No Longer an Either/Or Debate. [Online]
Available at: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/03/18/private-versus-public-cloud-no-longer-an-eitheror-debate/
[Accessed 10 February 2017].

Guido, P., 2015. It’s Time To End The Debate About Private Vs. Public Cloud. [Online]
Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ibm/2015/08/03/its-time-to-end-the-debate-about-private-vs-public-cloud/#4fd0f7f03f02
[Accessed 10 February 2017].

Huth, A. & Cebula, J., 2011. The Basics of Cloud Computing. US-CERT, pp. 1-3.

Mell, P., 2011. The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing. National Institute of Standards and Technology, pp. 1-3.

Racca, E., 2015. The public vs. private Cloud debate – what’s right for you?. [Online]
Available at: http://www.brennanit.com.au/the-public-vs-private-cloud-debate/

Rogers, O., 2016. The great cloud debate: public vs. private, commercial vs. open source. [Online]
Available at: https://451research.com/report-short?entityId=90425&referrer=marketing&utm_source=website_homepage&utm_medium=website&utm_term=cloud_transformation&utm_content=apply_for_trial&utm_campaign=2016_market_insight
[Accessed 10 February 2017].

Samuels, M., 2016. Cloud computing: Why the hybrid approach makes sense right now. [Online]
Available at: http://www.zdnet.com/article/cloud-computing-why-the-hybrid-approach-makes-sense-right-now/
[Accessed 10 February 2017].

Seshachala, S., 2015. The great debate: Public vs Private Cloud. [Online]
Available at: http://www.itproportal.com/2015/07/21/the-great-debate-public-private-cloud/
[Accessed 10 February 2017].

Whitehouse, T., 2016. Why the cloud vs on-premise debate is over. [Online]
Available at: https://blog.pa.com.au/cloud-2/cloud-vs-premise-debate/
[Accessed 10 February 2017].