Cloud Deployment Models

Cloud adoption has become a trend and a proven method to boost productivity. Instead of owning and maintaining physical servers and data centres, cloud technology allows you to operate your business over the internet and allows your employees to work remotely. There are different cloud deployment models that you can choose depending on your business requirements. In this article, we would be discussing various topics related to cloud deployments such as 

What is Cloud Deployment? Why we need it?

Cloud deployment describes how a cloud platform is implemented, how it is hosted, and who has the right to access it. Cloud deployment refers to the enablement of IaaS (Infrastructure as a service), PaaS (Platform as a service) or SaaS (Software as a service) solutions accessed by consumers. 

Cloud computing is one of the biggest technological innovations which has transformed the overall working style of the companies irrespective of their sizes. Establishing a business requires many pre-planning and the biggest one is where to install servers and other issues related to infrastructure. After cloud deployment, a user can fully focus on business without worrying about infrastructure and paying for what he uses.

Top Cloud Computing Deployment Models 

There are four types of cloud deployment models -

1. Public
2. Private
3. Community
4. Hybrid.

But we cannot say which one is the best cloud deployment model because each model has its own unique properties. Every business has different requirements depending on which the owner needs to deploy the particular cloud model. Now let us discuss the different types of cloud deployment models in brief.

#1 What is Public Cloud Model?

In the public cloud, computing services are offered to the public by the third-party providers via the public internet. These services may be free or sold on demand where customers need to pay as per the usage of storage, CPU cycles and bandwidth utilization. Public cloud solutions are readily offered by Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others.  

It is multitenant ie; the data of multiple organizations is kept in a shared location. The common example for public cloud is -Gmail, Google docs etc. 

Advantages of a Public Cloud

• Hassle-free infrastructure management - You do not need to develop or maintain your software as the service provider does it for you.
• High scalability - You can extend the available capacity when the company's demands increases.
• Reduced costs - You have to just pay for the services you use without worrying about the infrastructure (hardware or software needs).
• 24/7 uptime - An extensive network of the service provider’s servers ensures the never-ending availability of infrastructure and its operations.

Disadvantages of a Public Cloud

• Compromised reliability - Sometimes, public clouds may experience storage collapse and malfunction, like storage collapse in the Salesforce CRM 
• Data security and privacy can be a concern - Although accessing data is easy but a public deployment model keeps users unknown regarding where their data is stored and who has access to it.
• Lack of a customized service - Cloud service providers have standardized service options they probably fail to satisfy consumer’s requirements if they are unusual.

#2 What is Private Cloud?

In a private cloud, the services or solutions are dedicated to a particular organization or business. Private cloud also delivers high-level privacy and security so that sensitive data is not leaked to third party providers. As it offers customized solutions to the business, it is very expensive but at the same time reliable. 

Private cloud can be physically located at the user's organization or it can also be hosted on third-party service providers. Example of private cloud providers are - Cisco, Oracle, VMware, Dell etc. 

The Advantages of a Private Cloud

• High security and scalability - The private cloud environment is highly secure and customized. 
• Customized infrastructure - It fulfils the exact needs and requirements of your company. 
• Only authorized persons can access resources - The data and the resources can be accessed by those with whom you want to share with or have given access permission.

The Disadvantages of a Private Cloud

• Too costly -  To get customized infrastructure, a user will have to face a large capital outlay
• Under-utilization - In a private cloud, it becomes the user’s responsibility to manage the utilization of resources. 
• Capacity ceiling - Due to hardware limitations, a consumer may face the capacity ceiling and will have to manage with a certain amount of servers or storage

#3 What is Community Cloud?

Community cloud resembles a private cloud to many extents, the only difference is the number of users. Unlike the private cloud, in a community cloud, there can be more than one organizations with similar background sharing the same infrastructure along with other resources.

This type of model is best suited for joint projects to achieve business-specific objectives. Now, let us see what are the pros and cons of the community cloud model.

Advantages of a Community Cloud

• Cost reduction
• Improved security, privacy and reliability
• Ease of data sharing and collaboration

The Disadvantages of a Community Cloud

• Higher cost as compared to the public deployment model
• Sharing of fixed storage and bandwidth capacity

#4 What is Hybrid Cloud Model?

A hybrid cloud combines the private and public cloud environment and allows them to share data and applications. This works great and helps businesses to scale services back and forth from their private cloud to the public cloud.

Now, you must be thinking what is that condition where a user may require a hybrid cloud. There are companies that balance some of their load by locating sensitive data to a private cloud and deploying the less sensitive ones to a public cloud.

The Advantages of Hybrid Cloud

• Improved security and privacy - Here, the sensitive data can be stored in a private cloud and the less  one can be kept in public cloud.
• Enhanced scalability and flexibility - With hybrid cloud architecture, it is easier to increase the operational capacity unlike in private cloud environment
• Reasonable price - In the long run, hybrid cloud solution lower IT costs 

The Disadvantages of Hybrid Cloud

• Network Complexities - Hybrid cloud platforms are a mix of public and private networks and thus it becomes a complex system of architecture and requires a calculated approach to avoid any technical or security errors.
• Compliance - In Hybrid cloud environment, compatibility between a fast performing private cloud and slow-performing public cloud can lead to a sluggish performance.

Comparison of Best Cloud Deployment Models

Let us have a look at the characteristics of each cloud model and find out which one is the best fit for your company's cloud-computing needs.

	Public	Private	Communicty	Hybrid
Easy to Setup & Use	Easy	Requires IT Proficiency	Requires IT Proficiency	Requires IT Proficiency
Data Control	Little to none	High	Comparatively high	Comparatively high
Reliability	Vulnerable	High	Comparatively high	High
Data Security & Privacy	Low	High	Comparatively high	High
Cost-Effectiveness	Cheapest	Most Expensive	Shared amongst community members	Cheaper than private but costlier than public
Scalability & Flexibility	High	High	Fixed capacity	High

 

Guidelines to choose Cloud Deployment Models

As we all know that, every business has different requirements and demands therefore, the same type of cloud deployment model may not do justice to all of them. In this section, we would be discussing the guidelines that can help you out in choosing the best model that can fulfil the needs of your business and help in boosting productivity.

So, here are a few common guidelines as follows.

Private Cloud - A Private Cloud is the best choice for use cases in which we have to:

• Ensure high availability
• Meet data sovereignty or compliance requirements
• Protect sensitive information, including intellectual property

Public cloud - The public cloud perfect choice for use cases in which we need to:

• Manage upfront costs
• Run workloads over the short term
• Relieve demand on IT resources
• Scale-up quickly and accelerate time to market

Remember, to meet the requirements of each application and achieve workload optimization, organizations prefer to deploy the hybrid cloud model ie; a mix of both public and private clouds.

Conclusion

Every organization has to decide the cloud deployment model on the basis of its requirements. You can choose one model or combinations of the models to get benefits. We hope reading this article must have helped you understand the different cloud deployment models and must have given you an idea of which model is perfect for business. 

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