How do you choose the right Cloud? We are often asked this question. And that’s not surprising, as ‘only’ half of Dutch companies currently use Cloud services (source: CBS). A large portion of the other half still has an on-premises IT environment, meaning they are responsible for purchasing, maintenance, and management themselves. But what if you decide you want to outsource because you no longer want to make expensive investments in hardware and want to focus on your core business and innovation? The first questions that arise are: “what Clouds are there and what are the differences?” And the most important one: “which one should I choose?”
In this article, we explain the different types of Cloud available and how you can determine which type best suits your organization in 5 steps.
The different types of Cloud
We distinguish between four different types of Cloud: Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and Multi Cloud. Each of these four is briefly explained below.
Private Cloud from Fundaments
A Private Cloud is a custom-made Cloud environment. Because the hardware is made available exclusively for your organization, you receive guaranteed capacity and always have maximum control over the environment. This allows you to fully adapt our Private Cloud to your needs and business activities. In addition, Fundaments takes care of the maintenance and management of the hardware and infrastructure.
Public Cloud
With a Public Cloud, the IT infrastructure is shared with other organizations. This offers great scalability, flexibility, and global coverage. This is ideal for companies that expect peak moments in their service delivery. They can easily scale their Cloud capacity up and scale it back down after the busy period. Another major advantage of Public Cloud is that you only pay for what you use. Examples of Public Clouds include: AWS, Azure, and Google.
Hybrid Cloud
A Hybrid Cloud is a combination of two Clouds, based on a Private and Public Cloud. This type of Cloud is ideal when there are regulations regarding, for example, the storage location of a portion of the data, while other parts of the application can perfectly well be realized via a globally scalable Public Cloud service. Another application of Hybrid Cloud can be found in industrial automation; the control of a production line from a local Private Cloud is combined with providing applications from a Public Cloud.
Multi Cloud
A Multi Cloud goes a step further than a Hybrid Cloud. In a Multi Cloud, multiple Cloud environments are used within a single architecture. These can be Public and/or Private Clouds. By combining the right services and strengths of each Cloud, the best foundation is created for every application and work environment.
The 5 steps to choosing the right Cloud
Every Cloud has its own unique characteristics. And that is exactly what ensures the Cloud match you are looking for. You can determine which type of Cloud this is by asking yourself the following 5 questions.
1: What do I need the platform for?
Among Cloud users, we see two different types: a) Cloud users: those using the Cloud to offer a hosting service, and b) Cloud sellers: those using Cloud infrastructure to provide IT automation. For the first group, we see that integrating the application with the Cloud platform is very important: you want to ensure that new application code is automatically deployed on the hosted platform. Public Cloud offers many different automation interfaces (APIs) for this, making extensive automation possible. The Cloud platform must then, like the application, be programmable: infrastructure as code is the clear trend here. For Cloud sellers, a fixed price for a service is of great importance. Furthermore, the application landscape used within automation is often traditional and fits well with a Private Cloud architecture.
2: Do you operate globally or only in the Netherlands?
For some organizations, it is crucial that their data is guaranteed to reside in the Dutch Cloud. If this is a key requirement for your organization, the Private Cloud is the best choice. If this is not a priority and you operate globally, then a Public Cloud is your best option.
3: How innovative does the Cloud platform need to be?
The Fundaments Private Cloud is an innovative Cloud with highly flexible building blocks for servers, applications, and services that are deployed as custom solutions. Perfect for Cloud sellers. However, if you want to innovate in application development, the Public Cloud is the better choice. With AWS, you can choose from over 1,200 options for configuring a hosting platform, and this number grows every month. We often see that this is very important for Cloud users due to the continuous optimization cycle involved in application development. This integration enables companies to accelerate significantly.
4: How important are scalability and flexibility to your organization?
In this case, we look at usage characteristics. Do you support an office environment that needs to run five days a week from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM? In that case, a Private Cloud is an excellent solution. Do you experience specific peak moments, for example, because people need to vote during a live show on Friday night, or because lap times need to be analyzed during Formula 1? In that case, it is often better to choose a Public Cloud because of its virtually infinite scalable capacity.
5: Do you conclude from the above that both a Public Cloud and a Private Cloud have advantages for you?
In that case, you might consider a Hybrid Cloud. Because it is a combination of Public and Private Cloud, you get the best of both worlds. Are there also specific services provided by a Public Cloud vendor that fit into the Hybrid Cloud scenario? Then you can further expand this scenario with Multi Cloud; after all, why not use applications and email from Azure, combine them with a custom-developed application hosted using a serverless architecture in AWS, and also host that legacy application on a piece of Private Cloud? Anything is possible.
As you can see, the possibilities are endless, provided you know exactly where the advantages lie. Furthermore, implementing such a scenario is often quite complex; beyond simply purchasing a service, consider the connections and their security. It is essential to bring in an expert early on to reach your Cloud journey's end goal as quickly as possible and not get stuck in the highly interesting, yet equally complex, set of possibilities.
In this article, we explain the different types of Cloud and how you can determine which type best suits your organization in 5 steps.
