Insights

Four reasons to move to the private cloud

James Baker

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As discussed in previous blogs, virtually every organization (92% according to IDG) has begun its cloud journey.

In doing so, they need to make a critical decision: exactly which cloud should they use? The wrong decision can have serious consequences. If the migration is rushed or handled poorly, the cloud can create security and data privacy concerns and spiraling costs. But, approached correctly, the cloud powers the resilient enterprise, producing extraordinary value.

Every organization has to pick one approach from several options:

• Single cloud: Hosting your infrastructure and applications on one public cloud
• Multicloud: Hosting your infrastructure and applications on multiple public cloud
• Hybrid cloud: Hosting your infrastructure and applications on a mix of public and private cloud
• Private cloud: Hosting your infrastructure and applications solely on a private cloud.

According to Forbes, many organizations use the hybrid cloud, with an average of 2.2 public and 2.2 private clouds. While each has its advantages and disadvantages, the private cloud offers many companies the best mix of security, cost savings, and efficiency. Instead of moving your data to the cloud, you bring the cloud to your data.

This sort of approach is catching on: 72 percent of respondents of an Everest Group survey said their cloud strategy was either hybrid-first or private-first.

The private cloud is often more cost-effective, provides more security and privacy, and is more customizable than the public cloud

We discuss four ways below the private cloud drives value below:

1. Eliminates Vendor Lock-in

Every management team has experienced the painful realization it selected a vendor that overpromised and underdelivered. In addition, vendor lock-in can be a real concern in cloud operations because many migrations require organizations to reformat their data to fit the private cloud they are joining.

While some cloud providers allow you to lease time on servers, which gives your organization the ability to terminate the service if your situation changes without a significant financial penalty, moving your data out of a public cloud can be costly and time-intensive.

Knowing this, vendors often offer discounted rates if you commit to multiple years of service. However, your organization would have to pay a high sunk cost if you moved on before the contract ended in this scenario.

Especially in a fast-moving environment like the cloud, a vendor could easily fall behind technological advances and become a hindrance to your company’s resilience.

Lock-in hinders organizational momentum and saps morale. So there is a strong motivation to move just once. But if your provider raises prices, decreases in quality, or goes out of business, it may require another costly reformatting. With the native cloud, you may have more upfront costs, but there is value in knowing you control how you create your virtual environments.

2. Provides More Customization Options

While public cloud providers offer some customizations to customers to avoid costly reformatting, make no mistake: they will not be able to customize everything to your exact preferences. However, a private cloud allows your organization and its partners to customize the entire operation to your specific needs. And it can be extremely cost-effective if your organization can utilize some legacy technology to help power the private cloud. And while many companies choose to self-manage their private cloud, they can outsource management to another partner if that best fits their needs.

3. Ensures SLA Conformity

Storing your data in the public cloud requires a significant level of trust between the customer (you) and the cloud provider. As part of any public cloud relationship, the provider will supply a service level agreement (SLA) informing where the vendor stores your data. Companies that store customer data and other sensitive information in the cloud can be held liable for where it is stored. It can keep IT professionals and executives up at night worrying about their data hosted somewhere that violates their own SLA with their customers. With the private cloud more likely than not being hosted within your own data center, there is greater comfort in knowing your data is where it should be.

4. Provides More Security

Setting up your private cloud likely means you own the hardware that powers the deployment. You also have complete control over your security. In this scenario, your IT team dictates which tools are needed to protect your data and applications rather than requiring a consensus with the cloud provider.

There is a real benefit to knowing exactly where your data is stored versus visualizing it amid a large pool of data hosted by a third-party company. Having your data sit within your network where you can protect it with best-of-breed security solutions is a great advantage. And you never have to worry about an attack succeeding because there was confusion about whether you or the provider were responsible for the security.

So now that we’ve made a case for the private cloud, what are the next steps?

DIVIDER

Enter Fortuna

UST created Fortuna, an Open Enterprise Private Cloud Platform, to provide an array of cloud IaaS and PaaS services in your on-premise environment. Built entirely with open source components and commodity infrastructure, Fortuna brings the best of the public cloud to a completely customizable private cloud.

Fortuna’s API interface helps integrate to existing tool ecosystems, saving companies from unnecessary enterprise investments. Fortuna provides key benefits, including native auto-scaling capabilities that enable self-sustaining cloud operations while maintaining the performance requirements for critical business operations. Learn how UST Fortuna can bring the cloud to your data here.