Johannesburg, 29 Jan 2016
The benefits of cloud computing have been widely touted. In its infancy a decade ago, cloud computing has become the norm, as companies strive to lower costs and boost performance. The vast majority of companies have moved at least part of their environment to the cloud. However, many still don't understand the different cloud models, and which is best suited to their business.
Richard Vester, Director of Cloud Services at EOH, says companies first need to decide what they are hoping to achieve before deciding whether to opt for a public, private or hybrid cloud. "Private clouds, which see everything hosted on-premises, built with the organisation's resources and data centre investments, leaves the company in total control. However, this also means the company covers all the overhead costs. With public clouds, overheads are covered by the cloud provider, but the trade-off here is a certain amount of control is sacrificed. A hybrid model sees the costs being split between the two."
He says this is where companies need to decide how sensitive their data is. "Financial institutions, medical entities and suchlike, which want to gain the benefits of cloud without relinquishing control of their confidential data, would be better served by a private cloud model. In this way, security and control remain strictly within their purview, and compliance can be better maintained."
Vester explains that private clouds exist within the businesses' firewall, so the business has full control over its data - who can handle or access it, where it resides, and how it is transferred and stored. Companies handling highly sensitive third-party data would be better served by going the private cloud route. Another benefit of the private cloud model, he says, is that these clouds are tailored specifically to a company's needs. "The company gets to decide how the cloud will work, and can ensure that it marries well with existing technologies, applications, users and standards. There is no danger of vendor lock-in, and resolution can be prioritised according to the needs of your business, as there are no external owners to deal with."
On the downside, he says private clouds do not offer the same savings that public clouds do. "A public cloud provider will make applications, storage capacity and other resources available to businesses, according to their needs. In this way, businesses pay only for what they use."
According to Vester, public clouds are more cost-effective, as there is no capital outlay for the hardware that is needed to run a private cloud. "The cloud provider owns all the hardware and infrastructure, and essentially leases it to companies, which can scale up or down as necessary, so there is no wastage at all."
Because of this, companies that don't want to fork out large amounts of cash can benefit from the cloud, and have their applications and services delivered to them quickly, while paying only a monthly fee. "Moreover, these companies will always have access to the latest technologies, as the cloud provider will upgrade, meaning they don't have to pay for new hardware and infrastructure themselves. In addition, those opting for the public model can benefit from economies of scale, as a private cloud cannot hope to compete with a Google, for example, when it comes to price."
Vester says because both the private and public clouds offer certain benefits, most organisations end up opting to go the hybrid route, in which the company uses its own dedicated hardware and infrastructure to handle proprietary and confidential data, while a public cloud is used for less-sensitive and public data. "Hybrid cloud solutions see some resources being dealt with on-premises, and others off-premises. This model supports location-independent IT where workloads can run in the most suitable environment, whether locally or off-premises, whatever will be most beneficial and appropriate."
Vester adds the hybrid model also supports self-service enabled rapid resource provisioning for managers and application developers who require instant access to localised IT resources, as well as those that are held off-premises.
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