Cloud computing has enabled enterprises to reduce IT infrastructure spending by using pooled hardware resources and allocating flexible resources to various users. This has proven to reap rich rewards for companies in the testing and development phase. Yet, when it comes to full-scale deployment of IT resources for regular operation, public cloud computing services are marred by a lack of uptime assurances and security. This can only be addressed by private cloud computing.
The idea of private cloud computing is to bring down these concerns by dedicating hardware resources exclusively to individual users. In that case, your data would be stored in a specified group of servers in a data center and not just anywhere in the ‘cloud’. Definitely, there are reasons to cheer when it comes to the benefits of private cloud computing over public cloud computing. Enterprises are also increasingly leaning towards private cloud computing and shunning public clouds for good. In fact, a survey by Yankee Group has also pointed out that enterprises are relying much more on private cloud than public cloud. The survey has pointed out that 67% of the respondents prefer the private cloud. Clearly, there are reasons to cheer for enterprises when it comes to private clouds. Let’s go through some of these benefits.
Dedicated Hardware Leading to Enhanced Security
When you sign up for the private cloud, you get dedicated server/servers which means your data is more secure than data in a public cloud where resources are shared. You get dedicated hardware which means enhanced physical security, dedicated anti-virus software, and a firewall. You can physically point out your servers and ensure that network security is in place. Also, you can discuss with the concerned hardware and network security personnel and sort out issues.
Enhanced Flexibility
Flexibility is one of the most alluring elements of a private cloud. If you sign up for private cloud computing, you acquire the ability to size a server in a matter of minutes. You can get a more powerful and useful server on the fly. No wasted effort in trying to enhance the capacity of a server. If you need more disk space, more RAM or more CPU resources urgently, you can get it quickly.
Utilize Hardware Resources Fully
By virtualizing hardware resources, you can increase the value of your physical server. You can virtualize a cluster of servers in one physical server and share the resources. This brings down space usage and requirement of power, but more importantly, it becomes easier to manage. You can use the hardware resources such as the CPU fully since you can create copies of servers and make them up and running quickly.
Enhanced Protection Against Disasters
Virtualization allows better load balancing between servers by automatically shifting server resources instantaneously. You can also shut down a server without any downtime so you can perform maintenance jobs on the server such as add more RAM, replace the hard drive, or do something else without experiencing downtime.
Save Time and Money
Apart from the benefits of security and virtualization, you can get the service cheap and with much less hassle compared to buying dedicated servers. If you have more than 2 servers, you can go for virtualization. If there are multiple servers, you can go for private cloud computing by having a dedicated SAN and a number of physical host servers.
Conclusion
Public cloud has certainly revolutionized the world of information technology forever, but the private cloud can well be the next leap forward. It brings a world of benefits to the enterprise as well as the masses. While enterprises can cut costs, save time, manage operations easily, and do server maintenance jobs easily without causing downtime, end users get smooth browsing opportunities no matter how busy the servers are and how many users are browsing through a particular website. It is definitely a thumbs up for private cloud and enterprises seem to be taking private cloud computing in their strides.
