Generally when you start looking into getting into the "cloud", you are looking for three things: ease of use, accessibility and storage capability. Cloud storage of your documents, images and other materials makes it easy for people to access them worldwide. You can also easily send information through the cloud to other clouds. Public clouds are often used to both store large amounts of information and quickly access documents. They are scalable and easily added to without the expense of maintaining a mainframe and physical server. All public clouds are self-managed which means that your company is responsible for what you put on the cloud and maintaining your documents in the cloud. Private clouds, however are often restricted to one company's data and can only be accessed through company portals. This makes it easier to maintain documents in a secure manner, but you sacrifice some accessibility and access.
Pros: Public clouds are easily accessible to the public. They are very often easy to use and have great storage capacity because they are scalable to the needs of the company. Public clouds work in a multi-tenant environment with shared resources. Shared resources make it easier for people to connect worldwide. You can manage your own cloud and put in customized add-ons such as WordPress or VMware. You have no contracts, so if you decide to shut down your server you can. Pay-As-You-Go plans make this easily affordable.
Cons: Because public clouds are public, there is no security. Companies who need to keep certain documents secure will have problems keeping them secure on a public cloud. Public clouds won't allow you to customize the network or hardware for your company's needs since your company is only sharing a "piece" of the cloud. You have no control over hardware performance either as it is dictated by whatever the public cloud provider has running. If the public cloud, for instance, shuts down then you have no resources to bring it back up on your own. You won't be able to customize and set compliance standards for the public cloud because the cloud is shared between multiple tenants.
Pros: Private clouds are restricted to one company's use. They are easy to use within the company to connect with employees around the world. You can set compliance standards in the private cloud as it is a single tenant environment and manage your resources remotely. You can customized your hardware performance; your network performance and hybridize data solutions within your network.
Cons: Due to security concerns, other clients in the same data center can't access the cloud. You will need time to reconfigure the existing infrastructure to comply with the business environment and decide which resources to allocate to the cloud. There is no flexibility in regards to selecting storage capability quickly and easily as the documents need to be kept secure at all times.
Actually there is a third option that recently has gotten some press. That option is the hybrid cloud. A hybrid cloud combines the best features of both private and public clouds and can be customized to fit your company's specific needs. For instance, your company will need to have some secure private clouds to secure private information. Most companies use public clouds for web development and to test capacity. They also need, however, to secure sensitive customer data and proprietary data that require a private cloud. A hybrid cloud can also help your company add needed storage space quickly, securely and make it easily accessible.
Why not talk to Agility Communications? They can offer you the best cloud services available and have linked up with the top cloud service providers. Call and speak to a representative at 201-221-8573 or visit us at www.agilitycommunications.net.