Private Cloud vs Public Cloud

Are you considering moving your business communications to a private hosted cloud solution? Well, you’re not alone. The sector has shown tremendous growth of 25% year-on-year. In fact, according to a study by Synergy Research Group, businesses spent more on cloud infrastructure services last year than on data-centre hardware and software. The same report described cloud technology adoption as accelerating from “0 to 100 in ten years.”

Private Cloud vs Public Cloud – What’s The Difference?

Before committing to a solution for your business, it’s important to know the differences between the two options: public and private cloud.

Public Cloud

A public cloud solution is ‘multi-tenanted’ in that multiple users connect to it through the public Internet and its computing services are shared among different customers; though each customer’s data and applications running in the cloud remain hidden from other cloud customers.

The main point-of-difference is that you, as the end user, are not responsible for the management of the telephony or unified communications solution. The system is managed by the service provider and exists in data centres which the provider also manages and maintains.

The benefit is that new features can be deployed quickly and capacity can be easily increased when required. However, some companies will feel that security and control could be an issue in a shared environment. Also, downtime for maintenance is outside of the control of the business and some essential features may not be available within the core solution.

Overall, public cloud solutions can be a cost-effective solution which is easily scalable as business requirements change.

What is Private Hosted Cloud?

A private cloud is a single-tenant environment, meaning the organisation using it (the tenant) does not share resources with other users. Those resources can be hosted and managed in a variety of ways.

The private cloud can be located directly on-premise on the internal corporate network, or hosted at an off-premise data-centre behind a firewall and running on dedicated resources. Private cloud is also known as ‘corporate cloud’ or ‘internal cloud’.

Private cloud is a great option for businesses who already use a data-centre (either on-premise or off-premise) as current infrastructure and connectivity is already in place. Full control over maintenance windows, upgrades and add-ons, such as call recording and contact centre, is retained.

Importantly, private cloud also provides an extra layer of security for businesses with increased compliance requirements.

Connecting To The Private Cloud

There are multiple options for accessing private cloud systems, including broadband connections, leased lines and secure encrypted ‘tunnels’ over the public Internet (VPN). In short, you can “bring your own network”, and your solution provider will make the connection.

Networking benefits such as Quality of Service (QoS) prioritise voice and video traffic to ensure good quality communications with no ‘jitter’.

Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) is data forwarding technology that increases the speed and controls the flow of network traffic. With MPLS, data is directed through a path via labels instead of requiring complex lookups in a routing table at every stop.

MPLS provides high quality calls with secure connections and allows the business to establish a direct connection from the corporate network to the data-centre.

Software defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) uses software to make wide area networks more flexible. It allows sites to connect directly to the Internet using broadband links instead of sending all network traffic back to a regional office via private lines (which often are based on older, more expensive technology like MPLS).

Configurations and access policies are then centrally managed and easily applied across all sites, removing the need to manage each site network individually.

Assessing Your Business Requirements

Reliability & Security

If your business cannot risk the potential reliability, security and bandwidth issues involved in sharing resources in the public cloud, a private cloud solution provides maximum organisational control, easy management and security.

Powerful Integrations

Private cloud deployments are ideal for larger businesses that need to integrate with existing systems and applications.

Budgeting Flexibility

Private cloud solutions can be procured with CAPEX or via a solutions provider (like us!) with an OPEX or recurring license model.

Business Continuity

If your business absolutely cannot afford downtime, then private hosted cloud solutions offer peace-of-mind through redundancy, high availability and backup in the event of failure.

Private cloud is the most popular deployment model for larger enterprises, companies operating in industries with strict data regulations like government or financial services and businesses subject to geographic regulations that dictate where their voice infrastructure must be based.

Your Path To Private Cloud Communications

Marlin Communications provides private hosted cloud solutions using top tier data centres with geo-redundant environments to reduce disruption when the unexpected happens. Our tailored solutions will enhance your business today and well into the future.

Talk to us to find out how we can provide you with a unified, comprehensive platform for your business communications.