case study
Full Cloud vs Hybrid Cloud Solution
Overview
Everyone's moving to the cloud, but finding the right solution for your organisation means more than just jumping on the bandwagon. Knowing the difference between Public Cloud, Private Cloud and Hybrid Cloud solutions can save your business time and money, while streamlining your workflow for top notch efficiency and service delivery.
What is
a Private Cloud?
A Private Cloud is first party cloud infrastructure. Your business not only controls the cloud architecture down to who accesses it (and where it can be accessed from), but also owns the physical infrastructure where the cloud platform is hosted.
Many organisations have been running their own Private Cloud in some form or another for some time now. Even an SMB with a simple NAS (Network Attached Storage) accessible from both the local network and the internet is a simple type of private cloud.
But with SaaS (Software as a Service) now dominating in enterprise and business software development, Private Clouds are learning from the performance of public clouds and providing a more comprehensive suite of services to their internal clients.
Pros
- Total control over assets
- Potentially better security
Cons
- Expensive to implement and maintain
- Harder to scale efficiently
What is
a Public Cloud?
A Public Cloud is cloud architecture hosted on third party infrastructure. Your organisation doesn’t own most (if not all) of the physical technology hosting the architecture. Instead, you access it via the internet. Public Clouds negate the costs of physical infrastructure, as well as most of the costs of ongoing maintenance and security. Public Clouds base their business model on scale, and are therefore easier to scale for businesses that experience rapid growth or seasonal flux.
Pros
- More cost effective than purchasing and maintaining own infrastructure
- Top providers are best in class
- There is no need for power backup for locally hosted servers
Cons
- Potentially less control over security (Though not necessarily less secure)
- Requires internet connection (on site Private Clouds can be accessed through a LAN)
- Would normally require an additional redundant internet connection
- This approach can cost more on a monthly basis
What is
Hybrid Cloud?
Hybrid cloud mixes physically on premises personal (or private) cloud architecture with the use of public cloud services, integrating the two into a single Iaas (Infrastructure as Service) platform. Hybrid solutions allow workloads to shift between the private and public cloud as scale of operation changes, either through business growth or seasonal flux.
Implementation
Case Studies
The implementation of hybrid cloud solutions is highly dependent on the needs of the organisation. For example, business with sensitive data might choose to host workflows through a private cloud or server architecture restricted to physical locations of their business premises.
Less sensitive data, like test and development environments, can be hosted on third party cloud providers like Google Compute Engine. The same business can segrate archival customer data (like invoices and order history) from their business workflows by hosting it on Amazon Simple Storage Service, ensuring physical and virtual separation between sensitive assets and customer relevant data. Your email, routed through Google Apps or MS Office 365, is one of several data services that seamlessly implement into cloud hosting solutions.
Case Study: Transactional Spikes
Booking services are beholden to transactional spikes like holiday seasons, event releases and marketing drives can benefit from Public Cloud and Hybrid Solutions that allow the organisation to effectively scale when they need to.
If the same organisation, say a entertainment bookings service, was to wholly provide their own infrastructure then they would face the problem of either overinvesting in physical technology to cover peak times, or risk sluggish performance, poor service and even website downtime due to overloaded servers.
By utilising a Hybrid solution, the same organisation can engage a third party public cloud provider for a temporary lift in bandwidth. By collecting analytics data from each transaction, the organisation can also track how effectively they are scaling their infrastructure, resulting in cost savings over time.
Case Study: Security & Confidence
A business that requires high security needs to know who is rifling through their stats. This could be anything from a healthcare organisation that is responsible for people's personal data to a research and development business that thrives of invention and patents.
In some cases a public cloud simply can't provide the guaranteed levels of protection needed to ensure data security. Even if access is restricted, public clouds still host, copy and backup your data. If your organisation is considered a target for industrial tagging or cybersecurity threats, a private cloud where you have full control and responsibility of your data might represent a better solution.
Assurance Guaranteed
Still not sure what sort of cloud infrastructure would benefit your organisation the most? Contact Fishead for a cost benefit analysis and risk assessment and implement cloud the right way in your business.
Contact
Fishead Pty Ltd
Dulwich Hill
NSW Australia
Email: info@fishead.com.au
Ph: +61 415 274 174
Mob: 0415274174
ABN 84 000 697 147
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