Public vs Private vs Hybrid Cloud: Cloud Models Compared

Traditionally, if a company needed to deploy any application, it had to set up a physical server on its premises. Now let us take the example of a startup ecommerce website with limited funds in the present day. Investing in real hardware will be a major barrier to it. And as online business takes relatively less time to garner customers, what if millions of customers hit their website in no while? Or if they get a physical infrastructure and their business fails? That would be a huge waste of existing physical resources. 

Cloud technology has given us the answer to and solution to all these questions with flexibility in payment modes, scalability, adaptability, and easier deployment on a secure worldwide server. There is more to what cloud computing can do. We will have a comparative study of Public vs Private vs Hybrid cloud models and some of the providers in this article. To study more about cloud computing in-depth, you can enroll in our Cloud Computing Course.

Public vs Private vs Hybrid: Head-to-head Comparision

Public, Private and Hybrid is cloud deployment models in cloud computing.

• Public Cloud is like any other public service, for example, YouTube. Anyone can create an account there. It supports multitenancy, like an apartment. Anyone can pay their share and use it for themselves.
• Private Cloud is like an internal email server of companies, not everyone can use it directly. It is like a house. It can be accessed only within the organization. They require allocations of space, hardware, and environmental controls.  
• A hybrid Cloud is a combination of public and private clouds. They possess the components of both public as well as a private cloud. The infrastructure is decided after considering a lot of factors. For example, a database might be configured in a private cloud, whereas the frontend component is in a public cloud. A hybrid cloud allows connecting both the cloud deployment models. 

Now, we will be going through private, public, and hybrid cloud differences in a tabular format below.

Parameter	Public	Private	Hybrid
Cost	Cost-effective	Expensive	Expensive
Security	Depends on the cloud provider	Most Secure	Secure
Scalability	Highly scalable	Limited	Highly scalable with the right architecture
Accessibility	Everyone	Limited	Medium
Maintenance	Lowest	Highest	Medium
Shared Resources	Multitenant, Shared Servers	On-premise, Private Servers	Mixed
Owner	Cloud Provider	Organization	Organization
Examples	AWS, GCP, Azure, IBM, Oracle	VMware, HPE, Dell, Openstack	Rackspace, VMware, Cisco, IBM

Public vs Private vs Hybrid Cloud (Detailed Comparison)

Host

1. Public Cloud is hosted by the service provider itself. It runs on remote servers that the provider manages. Customers can access it over the internet. 
2. The private Cloud is hosted by the Enterprise (Third party). It can reside on-premises or in a data center.  
3. In Hybrid Cloud, some of the services are hosted by Enterprise (Third party) and the rest by the provider, depending upon the use case.  

Users

1. Public Cloud is accessible to the public, so there is no limit to the number of users. If the volume is high, servers are scaled up. If the volume is low, servers are scaled down.  
2. Private Cloud data can be accessed only by the users of the organization to which it belongs.
3. Hybrid Cloud data is split across public and private access. Important data is secured and not accessible to the public, whereas user interfaces are.

Access

1. The public cloud provides easy access to infrastructure and computing resources. Multiple clients can access it remotely over the internet. It can be compared to an apartment.
2. Private Cloud can be accessed by the employees within a closed network of only that company to which the cloud infrastructure belongs to. It can be compared to a house.
3. Hybrid Cloud access can be controlled by the correct configuration and infrastructure. It is a mixture of both public and private.

Owner

1. In Public Cloud, all the software, hardware, and other infrastructure are owned by the cloud provider itself. Customers can just use them for a while by paying for the subscription. Examples – are Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). You can go through the training for Architecting on AWS to learn more about AWS cloud computing capabilities.
2. A private Cloud is owned by any private organization.  
3. In Hybrid Cloud, some of the components are owned by the cloud service provider, and the rest of them by the organization itself.  

Flexibility and Ease of Use

1. Public Cloud is highly flexible as you can use the additional resources whenever required without thinking twice. It is easy to use as well as widely used, and there is a lot of good documentation available for it. 
2. The private Cloud is flexible in terms of customization, and it can be customized for a specific use case. The hardware can also reside either on-premises or in remote data centers. 
3. Hybrid Cloud is flexible in terms of data. Data can be moved between public and private cloud according to use.  

Scalability

1. Public Cloud is the most scalable (easy to add and delete) and provides immense resources. Scale up and scale down is very easy to perform at a minimal cost. 
2. Private Cloud is scalable within the capacity of internal resources, but it is expensive. 
3. Hybrid Cloud provides better scalability than the private cloud but is not as good as the public cloud. 

Performance

1. Public Cloud is useful when we need high computing resources for our workloads. We can pay for only what we use.  
2. Private Cloud can become expensive if we require high computing resources, some organizations might not be able to afford it.  
3. Hybrid Cloud provides us the flexibility for this. If we have workloads that require high computing resources, we can just migrate them to the public cloud. 

When to Use

1. Public Cloud is suitable when  

• There is a high possibility of surge so that servers can be scaled up instantly. 
• Insufficient funds to set up own private labs. 
• The target audience is spread out since the public cloud is location-independent. 

2. Private Cloud is suitable when  

• There is a high need for data control and security 
• Customization is required to a very high level. 
• The organization has enough funds to invest in advanced infrastructure. 

3. A hybrid Cloud is suitable when  

• The organization requires to set up a private cloud but wants to cut down on costs by deploying some of the lesser important services on the public cloud.  
• The organization requires advanced scalability as well as the best security. 
• The organization requires reliability by spreading services across different clouds.  
• There is a traffic surge on a temporary basis, and that level of resource capacity cannot be provided by a private cloud. In such cases, organizations can migrate to public clouds temporarily. This is known as Cloud Bursting. It is a situation wherein an application runs in a private cloud and “bursts” over to a public one when the compute capacity requirement increases.

Regulatory Compliance

1. Public Cloud provider guarantees that the underlying infrastructure is up to the mark for many regulatory bodies. Read more about AWS compliance here. 
2. Private Cloud can be configured to provide privacy and governance rules for sensitive and confidential workloads and data. 
3. Hybrid Cloud adheres to some of the regulatory compliance and allows to configure and customize. 

Cost

1. Public Cloud has a lower cost than the private and hybrid cloud. 
2. The private Cloud is the most expensive. 
3. Hybrid Cloud is more expensive than public but lesser than private. It distributes costs across both. 

Benefits

Public Cloud  

• No Capital Expenditure is required for lab setup, and flexible pricing options are present. 
• No maintenance and upgrades are required from the user’s side. Everything is down by the cloud provider. 
• Provides on-demand scalability without paying a hefty price for physical hardware.  
• Provides reliability through geographically distributed servers and data centers.  
• Saves time for the organization by providing managed and easy-to-use services. 

Private Cloud 

• Provides high security for sensitive data. Allows access to it only within the organization. 
• Enables organizations to perform advanced customization for any business logic. 
• Organizations can ensure that their standard matches any of the regulatory compliance.  

Hybrid Cloud  

• Highest level of scalability along with security. 
• Provides a great level of customization. Workloads can be distributed across clouds. 
• Cost-effective for medium-level organizations. 

Challenges

Public Cloud  

• Offers lesser security as compared to the private cloud because its resources are shared publicly.  
• Low visibility and control of the physical infrastructure.  
• Does not offer many customization options to the user. 

Private Cloud  

• Huge Capital Expenditure is required for lab setup. 
• Scale up and down is expensive and time-consuming if we do not have it handy. 
• Complex to learn, control and manage. 
• Provides limited scalability, agility, and availability. 

Hybrid Cloud 

• Architecture design is complex. 
• Expenditure can be difficult to track and manage.

Public vs Private vs Hybrid Cloud: Which One Should You Choose?

Startups or small businesses usually prefer public cloud due to the cost. In comparison, medium to larger businesses prefer a combination of a private and a public cloud, that is, a hybrid cloud. The combination and architecture chosen are such that it minimizes the cost and maximizes the outcome. The pros and Cons of each model are studied thoroughly. For example, a government agency would consider a private cloud any day due to its tight control of security.

To leverage a strong testing environment, one would prefer the public cloud. Applications, where the user volume is huge and dynamic public cloud would be used because a private cloud’s capacity might be full, but a public cloud’s capacity would not be. It can be scaled up easily and instantly. When there are multiple business verticals with strict securities, hybrid cloud would be ideal. The right focus should be on application modernization and the correct architecture for it. To know more about which cloud would be the best for your requirement, you must have a look at KnowledgeHut’s Cloud Computing Course Duration.

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Conclusion

To conclude, if you want to minimize overhead and grow your business to another level, cloud computing would be the one-stop solution to cater to most of your problems - improved manageability, less maintenance, fluctuating demand, user-friendly interface, cost-effective, intelligent, highly regulated, and much more. Most of the cloud providers come with great documentation, which can help one get an overview of the services they offer. Cloud computing offers various service models and deployment models which can be leveraged through the right architecture design. It all comes down to which is the best fit for your use case. For a comparison of cloud-computing software and providers, check out Cloud-computing comparison.