Private Cloud Deployment Can Be Easy

By the DynaSis Team

In a follow up to last week’s article about cloud adoption, we wanted to take a closer look at private clouds and the issues surrounding them. To date, per a recent “State of the Cloud” study, public cloud deployment far outpaces that of private cloud—88% of enterprises are using public cloud while 63 percent are using private cloud. However, as we mentioned last week, research firm Gartner expects private cloud deployment to grow at nearly twice the rate of public clouds (46 percent versus 24 percent) over the next two years.

To clarify for the purposes of our discussion, a public cloud is any hosted cloud environment where resources are shared among many customers. This can be a grouping of large data center servers divided into small virtual servers to serve multiple customers (called “multi-tenancy”). Or, it can be a collection of servers hosted by a software developer who leases SaaS (software as a service), for which all customer files and data reside in common storage at the data center of the host. (Google Drive and Dropbox are two examples of SaaS with a public cloud model.)

A private cloud, on the other hand, is a cloud environment hosted either at the premises of the company that owns the data or on a dedicated server—one that is not virtualized and shared with other companies—at a provider’s data center.

Provided they are hosted and managed by a reputable, experienced provider with a strict security profile, public clouds are perfectly safe. However, for resources subject to regulatory scrutiny, private clouds are often a better option than public ones. Firms whose management isn’t comfortable with public cloud “togetherness” may also opt for a private cloud—or a hybrid model, where resources are divided between a public cloud and a private cloud, usually based on security criteria.

Unfortunately, we have seen many SMB decision makers avoid the cloud altogether because they have heard private clouds are expensive or complicated. Nothing could be further from the truth. If a business owner has a compelling reason not to use a public cloud, or he/she sleeps better at night knowing that corporate resources are safely locked up in a server cabinet at his office, there is now a straightforward, affordable way to host an internal private cloud.

Advanced technology allows companies such as DynaSis to install a small, no-load software “agent” on an organization’s physical file server and then make the resources available to remote personnel and other authorized individuals over a secure Internet connection. In the best of these scenarios, the IT provider manages and secures not only the cloud environment but also all devices (e.g. PCs; smartphones; tablets) accessing the resource as well as the networks on which the corporate information travels.

To be the most valuable and comprehensive, these solutions should offer file storage, sharing, synchronization and backup, enabling remote workers to collaborate and share assets securely with each other and authorized clients and vendors. It’s private cloud computing at its finest, and it is available and reasonably priced, now.

About DynaSis

DynaSis is an Atlanta IT services and cloud-computing provider for small and mid-sized businesses. All of our solutions focus on helping companies achieve the three fundamental IT necessities of the modern business—availability, security and mobility. We specialize in on-demand and on-premise managed IT services, managed cloud infrastructure, desktops and backups, and professional hardware and equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ IT support and services, visit www.dynasis.com.