Cloud place or services being offered could describe cloud computing.
We have the following types of clouds based on place:
· Public,
· Private,
· Hybrid, and
· Community.
Public Cloud
Here, Service provider places its resources such as applications and storage through the Internet. A pay per use model determine service cost. Fees vary according to criteria as time use, traffic volume, number of concurrent users or visits.
Servers and storage systems mix data and processes from multiple clients. Users do not know the other clients' process that run on the same servers, networks, and storage systems.
Public Clouds are available to the public or a large industry sector. When this infrastructure is basic, only offers equipment or storage and not software, we talk about Infrastructure as a Service. When there is also operating system, database management and some services have a Platform as a Service model.
Cost savings is a Cloud computing principal benefit. You do not have to make an initial investment in equipment or software licenses, providing more flexibility in IT infrastructure implementation. On the other hand, the cloud computing challenges are security, interoperability and portability of information.
Platforms allow users to mount their own applications, but there are also generic applications available such as Office 365, Google Apps or Microsoft Dynamics Online.
Private Cloud
Private clouds are networks or data centers that use cloud computing technologies, such as Virtualization. This cloud offers high data protection and service level related to the owner. Themselves administered the cloud, and a Firewall secure it.
The main difference between public and private clouds, is that a public one provides services to multiple organizations. A private integrates policies and infrastructure capabilities used by the organization. On the other hand, public clouds tend to offer general consumer services at low-cost.
Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid clouds combine the models of public and private clouds. The user owner one part and shares another in a controlled way.
It is like a private application strengthened with computing services in the cloud. The organization keeps up control of its main applications.
A hybrid cloud is an intermediate step before moving most of the applications to the cloud, this is a less risky decision.
This Cloud has the advantage of a moderate first investment, supplemented by the services of cloud computing on demand.
Based on future requirements, you can upgrade the platform without an infrastructure investment, taking one of the following ways:
• For stable or constant needs, you can increase private cloud infrastructure and move some services to the public cloud.
• For occasional or intermittent requirements keep up the service in public clouds.
The most important advantage is that they allow systems administrators to decide which data and applications run on internal private cloud and which data stored on a public cloud, avoiding excessive resources. In this cloud type, you handle critical applications and data in the private cloud, and moves the less critical applications to the public cloud.
The Cloud complexity of use and cost are the principal disadvantages.
Community Cloud
In a community cloud several organizations share infrastructure, supporting a particular community on a specific topic, such as security, research, policy or compliance. The community or a third-party can manage the cloud. It is a private cloud extension.
This cloud supports a cluster of small organizations forming community. It supports the needs of these communities.
Public clouds, private or hybrid: what is the best option for your company?
Although cloud computing is attractive and promising, it is possible that the company wants to continue to host some applications locally, especially when the data criticality degree is high, such as business intelligence data. This is also the case of very sensitive data, such as medical records.
Any company can reap the benefits of the cloud, such as cost, speed and better asset use, through data center with a private cloud environment. An internal implementation of a cloud computing through Virtualization offers the freedom to manage workflow services and security policies, the disadvantage is that you cannot meet the same level of scalability that a public cloud.
Public clouds offer the benefit of unlimited growth of the application. These Cloud data centers are often offered in standardized, scalable modules, allowing to handle loads with profitability and efficiency
Another option is the hybrid cloud, a model which simultaneously works with private and public clouds. Here the public cloud manages overloads during periods of high demand. Also, you have a private cloud to meet average operational requirements, enabling not oversize the data center.
In terms of costs compared to a traditional data center, there are savings in the number of servers required to do a task. In this model, firms are not restricted to use a single data center, they can use multiple data centers and even build their own internal infrastructure.
Although cloud computing is in its early years, the efficiency gains of 40 to 50 percent are taking into account to start a private cloud, for companies that for one reason or another cannot make use of cloud computing systems public.
Public clouds have certain advantages and disadvantages. Public cloud allows an almost unlimited growth, and you pay only for what you consume. However, the companies' concern focuses on data security, be restricted to a service provider, and geopolitical reasons related to the information storage.
Similarly, some companies have serious drawbacks due to its infrastructure, the systems diversity represents a significant barrier. There is a variety of computers running different operating systems on different processors. In contrast, most providers of cloud services offer limited ranges in reduced hardware, leaving companies with a heterogeneous infrastructure limited. Here, they can only put some applications in the cloud, while others should stay on internal servers. This mixture leads to difficulties to administer internal resources and services provided by the cloud.
One solution is to use a Virtualization environment internally, using the existing hardware resources. The benefits of this vision is a higher use of resources and greater efficiency.
