In its early stages during the 1990s, the term cloud referred to the gap between cloud users and computing providers. As the technology advanced, during the early 2000s, cloud computing turned into a field that defined an infrastructure model, providing cloud users with remote resources. Today, cloud computing is a booming industry, providing a wide range of remote resources, offered in public, private, or public cloud environments.
What Is Public Cloud Storage?
Public cloud storage is a type of storage that enables you to save data on remote servers accessed through an Internet connection. The resources your data is stored on are owned and managed by a cloud service provider who you pay through a subscription.
Public cloud storage can grant greater data availability, accessibility, and scalability that are difficult or impossible to achieve with on-premises resources. You can use it on demand and from globally distributed clients. Typically, public cloud services duplicate your data across multiple data centers. This ensures that data remains available and can reduce the time it takes to access and retrieve data.
When you use public cloud storage you are essentially using a virtual data center that is connected to your on-premises clients or resources via API. These data centers often share server resources with other cloud tenants although your data is isolated from other tenants for security.
Public Cloud Storage Pros and Cons
When considering public cloud storage there are several pros and cons you should be aware of.
Pros of public cloud storage include:
- Pay for use—with public cloud storage you are only responsible for the storage you use or provision. Additionally, service costs include maintenance and management of the storage infrastructure and typically come with a service level agreement (SLA). This billing strategy enables you to use services with minimal capital expenses or technical debt.
- Scalability—storage can be easily scaled up or down as needed. Since providers already have substantial resources, you don’t have to wait for additional servers to be purchased or configured. Instead, you can scale instantly or near instantly. This enables you to quickly meet storage demands and makes planning for future growth simpler.
- Global availability—public cloud resources are globally accessible. Providers typically have multiple data centers per region and multiple regions distributed across the globe. Additionally, since storage is accessed via the web, you can use your data from nearly any Internet-connected device, regardless of platform.
Cons of public cloud storage include:
- Control over data—when data is stored in public cloud resources, you lose some control over it. While you can set access controls and encrypt data you cannot prevent provider employees from gaining access. You also don’t have full control over where data is stored since public clouds typically replicate data to multiple locations to ensure availability.
- Bandwidth—migrating data to and retrieving data from public cloud storage requires an Internet connection and bandwidth capable of transferring your data. If you are transferring or accessing significant amounts of data, you may not have enough bandwidth to support public cloud storage use and other workloads.
- Performance—any data that is accessed from a public cloud has some latency created during request, authentication, and transfer. Additionally, depending on the tier of storage you’re using, cloud resources may not have high speed connections or latency guarantees. If workloads are dependent on fast speeds, public cloud resources may negatively impact performance.
What Is Private Cloud Storage?
Private cloud storage is like public cloud storage but on dedicated resources that you do not share with any other tenants. You can host private cloud storage on-premises with appliances or servers or through a third-party.
Private cloud storage can grant you access to the same scalability, flexibility, and availability as public clouds with greater control over your data and access. One major difference is that your data is not publicly accessible and instead is accessed through private networks.
Private Cloud Storage Pros and Cons
Pros of private cloud storage:
- Greater data privacy and control—with a private cloud you have full control over where your data is stored and who has access to it. If private clouds are hosted on-premises, you can even eliminate concern over providers accessing data without your awareness.
- Faster access to data—when data is stored on-premises in a private cloud it is similar to storage in non-cloud resources. Latency is often lower since you are accessing data in the same region.
Cons of private cloud storage:
- Limited scalability—private clouds tend to have less demand for scalability due to limited users. Because of this, private clouds tend to be built on traditional IT resources and infrastructure that are not as easy to scale on demand.
- You’re responsible for maintenance—operating a private cloud on-premises requires the same maintenance and effort as operating traditional resources. This means you still need an in-house IT team to manage your cloud and you do not gain the benefit of outsourced maintenance.
Conclusion: Public vs Private vs Hybrid Cloud Storage
Public cloud storage services are primarily designed for unstructured data that is not constantly changing, such as backups or archives. It can be cost saving depending on how much data you store and how frequently you need to access that data. These services are generally the best choice when you have many external users that need to access your data.
Private cloud services are primarily designed for actively used data that you want to make more accessible to Internal users. In particular, private clouds are meant to provide cloud benefits for highly regulated or sensitive data. These services are generally the best when you need cloud features with the ability to strictly control your infrastructure.
Hybrid cloud storage can be either a combination of private and public cloud storage or a combination of some cloud and traditional, on-premises storage. Hybrid cloud systems typically sync data between the different resources to increase data availability while reducing latency. These services are also used to enable unified access to data while still enabling you to store sensitive data on-premises.