What Is Private Cloud?

What is private cloud? You may not know what private cloud actually is when we discuss it on our blog, so let us be very clear on the subject. It is when a singular customer desires and orders a cloud computing environment just for themselves. They do this to benefit from the many control and security advantages that come with an on-premises IT infrastructure. 

Corporate cloud, internal cloud, and private cloud are all names for this cloud computing environment where all of the software and hardware resources are accessed and controlled solely by the customer that it is designed for. Cloud computing in itself comes with a multitude of advantages, including scalability, easier service delivery, and elasticity. Private cloud combines these benefits with the security, resource customization, and access control that comes with having the cloud infrastructure physically on their premises. 

Choosing private cloud over public cloud (the opposite of private cloud, the cloud computing infrastructure is shared between multiple customers) is a common choice made by companies that are looking to easily meet their compliance requirements. Some companies also choose to go for private cloud because of the intellectual property, confidential documents, financial data, medical records, personally identifiable information (PII), and other confidential/sensitive data that they are concerned about.

By designing and building private cloud architecture around cloud native principles, companies give themselves the option of moving to either public cloud or even a hybrid cloud (mix of public and private) whenever they desire. 

How Does Private Cloud Work?

As mentioned earlier, private cloud is just for one customer, therefore meaning that all of the resources that come with private are only available to that customer. This is known as isolated access, and private cloud infrastructure is generally kept on the premises of the customer that it is for, usually in their data center if they have one. However, private clouds can be hosted on a cloud provider's infrastructure (that is independent to the company), or infrastructure that is rented and located offsite. Models for the management of the private clouds also come in many different flavors, the customer can opt to totally manage it themselves, or pay for full or partial management from a service provider. 

Private Cloud Architecture

Apart from the fact that private cloud is just for one customer, it is based on the exact same technology that other types of clouds use, i.e. technologies that allow customers to configure and provision computing resources and virtual servers on demand so that they can easily, quickly, and even automatically scale their response to traffic and usage. This can also be used to optimize the utilization of resources, and to implement redundancy to achieve high availability.

The specific types of technologies are as follows:

• Automation: Automation speeds tasks up like integrations and server provisioning, that are usually carried out by hand over and over again. This in turn reduces the need for human interaction and intervention, making automatic delivery of resources possible, and reducing human error. 
• Management Software: Management software allows administrators to have centralized control over the applications and the infrastructure that they run on. This gives them the ability to optimize availability, resource utilization, and security of the private cloud.
• Virtualization: This allows IT resources to be disconnected from their physical hardware and moved towards resource pools of storage, networking capacity, storage and computing. These resources are then divided between containers, Virtual Machines (VMs), and other elements of virtualized IT infrastructure.

Along with these specific types of technologies, users of private cloud can use practices and architectures from cloud native applications, like microservices, containers, and DevOps, that can give them much more flexibility and efficiency. This would facilitate a move to a public or hybrid cloud in the future as well.

The main reason that private cloud exists is that it enables ALL companies to take advantage of the many benefits that come with cloud computing. No matter how highly regulated the industry is that the company is in, using a private cloud ensures that they meet all of the control, security, and customization needs and regulations. Some quick specific benefits of private cloud include:

• Greater visibility into access control and security
• Absolute control over software and hardware choices
• More flexibility in customizing software and hardware
• Full compliance with regulations
• And many more!

So, did you know what private cloud is now? Do you have any questions or anything else to add to this article? Clinked would love to hear from you in the comments below!