When it comes to network connectivity and infrastructure, small businesses have a very important choice to make: should they go with public or private cloud hosting?
Here’s an example of how public cloud hosting works and why it may be better to opt for a private cloud server for your small business.
Servers are very powerful machines that can provide processing power and data storage to many users at once. These machines are what public clouds are made of. A public cloud is often compared to a condominium where tenants rent a bit of space and pay association dues to enjoy shared amenities such as elevators and services such as maintenance.
Just like condo tenants have no say in how the condo is designed, public cloud users have no say in how the cloud’s architecture is built. Users have to be the ones to adjust their processes and systems to make the public cloud work for them.
Both tenants and users alike have to vie for the availability of service providers to address their needs. For tenants, let’s say a leak in a 22nd-floor unit causes the wall paint in three units directly below to swell up. Condominium maintenance services will prioritize fixing the leak before addressing the paint blisters.
In the same manner, if multiple cloud users direct their concerns to the cloud service provider (CSP), they’ll be at the provider’s mercy. For instance, if your CSP determines that another client's issue is more urgent than yours, then you'll have no choice but to wait until the provider can accommodate you.
This isn’t necessarily the case with private cloud for small businesses.
What Is a Private Cloud?
A private cloud is a cloud environment that you have all to yourself.
A private cloud is also referred to as a corporate cloud or internal cloud. It is essentially the same as a public cloud, except that you are the sole user of that cloud. This means that you can configure it completely to your liking, and there’s little to no waiting in line in case you need something fixed or adjusted. A private cloud for your small business also means having massive amounts of processing power and data storage at your disposal.
Types of Private Cloud Hosting
There are three types of private cloud servers for your small business:
- Virtual: This is a public cloud environment, but the workloads are isolated from other tenants’. This can be compared to having exclusive use of an entire condominium floor.
- Hosted: Here, you’re the sole cloud user.
- Managed: This is a hosted cloud environment, but the cloud provider also provides ancillary services such as identity and access management.
Obviously, this means that a private cloud is considerably more expensive than a public cloud, and the private cloud types above become pricier as you go down the list. But as you can see, there are a lot of benefits of using a private cloud server for your small business.
No matter which option you choose based on your budget or business needs, you can rest assured that you’ll always get fast and efficient services from your service provider. Private cloud hosting doesn’t operate on a first come first served basis like public cloud hosting does.
That means your business needs will always be a top priority and will be taken care of as quickly as possible to ensure your servers and networks are operating at maximum capacity at all times.
When Should a Business Use a Private Cloud?
Private cloud hosting is used when public clouds can’t adequately fulfill a business’s needs, such as:
- High computing and storage requirements
- Customized cloud architecture that fits how a business works
- Very high level of uptime for mission-critical workloads
- Stringent cybersecurity standards
- Regulatory compliance (such as for rules on where a business can store certain types of data)
What Are the Advantages of Using a Private Cloud?
Private cloud hosting services offer a lot of advantages for small businesses that simply can’t be ignored, including:
- Significant cost savings compared to public cloud servers
- Greater service efficiency and control over your data and IT infrastructure
- Customization of hosting services to suit your business requirements
- Enhanced security and privacy measures using private cloud servers to protect your data
- Continued access to data servers even if there’s a security breach
- Compliance with federal data storage mandates
- Private cloud hosting ensures business continuity for you even if your service provider goes out of business
- Global access regardless of regional legal compliance mandates
What Are the Disadvantages of Using a Private Cloud?
Unless you’re using a managed private cloud, you’ll need a team of your very own cloud specialists to make a private cloud work for your business. You’ll need to add staff who can redesign the data centre infrastructure and then manage the entire cloud.
Second, you’ll have to add management tools. These, together with new private cloud tech such as user self-service, can make your processes more complex.
In addition to higher rent, you’ll also have to pay for services such as basic network maintenance.
Last but not least is the fact that a CSP may be handling many clients. This means that even though services ought to be dedicated to a private cloud user, you’ll likely still end up on a waiting list.
Why Opt for XBASE Technologies as a Preferred Private Cloud Service Provider in Toronto?
XBASE Technologies is Toronto's most reliable private cloud service provider. We are there where and when you need us, and we provide full-service IT support solutions to suit your business’s ever-changing needs.
While public clouds may be right for small businesses, private clouds may be the logical next step up from on-premise workloads. To know which option is the best cloud for your small business, turn to XBASE’s Exponentially Better™ cloud services. Let’s set up a discussion today.