Public cloud? Private cloud? These terms are used interchangeably these days, which leads to a considerable amount of confusion among our clients when they ask where’s my data and is it secure. Let’s break them down and explain the differences.
Let’s start with Public Cloud. These are made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organisation selling cloud services. Examples of large public cloud services include Amazon EC2, Gmail, Office365 and Dropbox.
Private Cloud is operated solely for an organisation and is not generally used for public consumption. A private cloud can be created and managed by a third-party provider.
On-Premise Private Cloud offers the same functionality of private cloud solutions, but company data stays on-premise and therefore under the control of the business owner. Organisations that deal with sensitive information, or personal details of clients, favour on-premise solutions because they are protected.
Let’s summarise the good and the bad of Cloud technologies – and how it affects your business.
The good:
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Cloud technology is a great way to share, store and receive files.
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Cloud is extremely flexible and can be used for multiple functions and on a variety of devices.
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You can backup data to a cloud system, on or off-premises.
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It can save you a lot of office space and less rent can’t be too bad!
The bad:
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Security: there is a myriad of security issues with public cloud and many people continue to use it because often public services are ‘free’. These services are no good for business as the cost of losing data is significantly higher than paying for a private cloud service.
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Data ownership is also a huge issue for business owners – many cloud services do not openly disclose who the data belongs to. Many ‘Platform As A Service’ (PaaS) services such as Facebook state in their small print that data uploaded belongs to the service and therefore can be used at will by that service.
If you are a business, you should be investing in a private cloud.
How do these factors affect your business?
Investing in a private, on-premise cloud solution will help eliminate many of the issues listed and allow you the flexibility and functionality of a public cloud. On-Premise private cloud also comes with the added benefit of being the least GDPR intensive solution generally as the data is all within your network, rather than being partially on a 3rd-parties network.
Here at Invicta Linux we help our clients get the best solution for their needs by providing them with private, on-premise solutions, keeping their data in their control whilst allowing them flexibility.
We provide hardware, software, installation and staff training to ensure that your business can move into the future of computing without risking your data. We also provide our solutions on a Contract Hire scheme so you can have the benefits of Private Cloud without the responsibility of server ownership or the problems that come with housing your data in third-party networks.
– Blog post by Kieran Chakravorty, Director at Invicta Linux.
I work for Invicta Linux, Business specialists in Data, Security & Communications.
Tel: 0330 2020 139 / 01304 450070
Email: info@invictalinux.co.uk
Website: https://invictalinux.co.uk
