The security facet: Public cloud vs private cloud

Sunija Rishi, VP, Marketing & Business Development, Nevales Networks

As per Gartner, cloud-based security services market will be worth $4.2 billion by 2016, as companies seek out new ways to deliver low cost security offerings. Public and private clouds are interesting cloud sub domains to know about and yes the security aspect can not be ignored.

Public vs Private Cloud

A public cloud is one based on the standard cloud computing model, in which a service provider makes resources, such as applications and storage, available to the general public over the Internet. Yet, another feature of public cloud is that, it is available to all and believes in agility.

You can catch up with your work any time you wish and from any corner of the globe. The customer has no visibility and control over where the cloud services are being hosted. The core infrastructure is shared between many organizations, but each organization's data and application usage is logically segregated so only authorized users are allowed access. Public cloud service is appealing to many decision-makers as it reduces complexity and long lead times in testing and deploying new applications.

It is generally cheaper, too, as there is little or no capital expenditures needed. The public cloud services may be free or offered on a pay-per-usage model. Few popular examples of public cloud are Gmail and Dropbox.

Private cloud is the implementation of cloud services on resources dedicated to your organization, whether they are on-premise or off-premise. A remarkable difference between a public and private cloud is that if you are running a private cloud, you are physically managing the machines, paying for them, and operating the entire infrastructure, including the software that does the instant deployment and billing of services.

The private cloud resides at the customer's location and offers customers more control over the infrastructure. It is important to keep in mind that a private cloud also offers on-demand capability where more services can be added quickly as needed.

The Security Facet

Security concerns for cloud technology were always a matter for consideration for IT professionals and researchers. Whether it is public, private or hybrid cloud, securing data was utmost priority of cloud providers and its managed services so that they offer customers a reliable and flexible cloud environment.

Let us begin with a major difference between private and public clouds on the basis of security factor. With private clouds, you control the physical servers and access to the servers. With a public cloud not only do you not control the machines or access to them, you are unlikely to ever touch one physically.

With public cloud storage and collaboration solutions, enterprise data is transferred to and stored at the third-party servers of the service provider. As the service provider has a readymade, already-managed infrastructure in place, configuration and maintenance burden is minimal - and with access to enterprise data, public cloud services provide great usability in the web.

On the contrary, private cloud storage and collaboration solutions are characterized by the uncompromising security and privacy, because data is stored completely within the enterprise enclave.

A private cloud is the preferred choice for enterprise and government organizations looking to reap the benefits of cloud computing without compromising critical security policies or overall system flexibility. From an enterprise point of view, there are some security benefits to a private cloud. Your information lives behind your firewall. Use of public clouds is frequently prohibited in highly-regulated industries.

The benefits and drawbacks of the traditional public and private cloud storage and collaboration solutions make it difficult for enterprises to select a single option among public or private cloud. However, that decision is getting easier, with cloud-managed private cloud models taking the best from both models to deliver the ease of deployment and use of public clouds, combined with the security of private cloud deployments.

As per Gartner, the growth of private cloud computing is being driven by the rapid penetration of virtualization and virtualization management, the growth of cloud computing offerings and pressure to deliver IT faster and cheaper.

Do your homework well and gear up for cloud..

Grabbing cloud technology is the key to sure shot successful business. All you require is to hire managed cloud services along with professional work force that can drive your business to heights you have never imagined before.

Security qualms often accompany technological change, however, those concerns can be managed with enough homework. Before moving to cloud, one should investigate on how secure a vendor is. Is this a company with deep resources that will clearly be around for the long tow? Does the company store your data across multiple data centres, in multiple locations, and what sort of backup and recovery strategy do they offer?

It is diligent to know where your data resides.