The first step is determining if your business should rely on a public or private cloud, or if a hybrid will best suit your needs. Here are some questions to ask to determine the ideal services for your business.
Once you assess your cloud needs, here’s a closer look at your options, along with some pros and cons of each.
Pros: Public clouds are flexible and scalable. Cost comes down to use, and location is a non-issue. You can pool high levels of resources with a public cloud, meaning you benefit from larger economies. One big plus for those who aren’t cloud-tech savvy: Your business doesn’t have to manage it.
Cons: Staying compliant in certain industries like health care becomes an issue with public clouds, as does security. Public clouds are simply more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Reliability is also a concern for public cloud users.
Pros. Private clouds are scalable. They are also self-service and offer multi-capacity uses. They are crucial for companies that leverage lots of big data. Most important, however, they are more secure as private clouds provide hosted services situated behind a firewall to a limited number of people.
Cons. The two downsides of private clouds are management and money. Businesses’ own IT teams must manage private clouds. That means having to budget for staffing, maintenance, and capital. Virtualization, cloud software, and management tools are added costs as well.
I’m not alone in my expectations for an expanding hybrid cloud marketplace—some projections have it growing to $91.74 billion by 2021.
As for pros and cons, there isn’t much to say on the negative side. For highly changeable workloads, hybrids are the ideal solution. They offer the key to scalable and flexible business solutions.
Startups need cloud service as much as CIOs of established companies. Consider what best suits your needs and budget, and get to work on choosing the one that’s best for you. Remember, it’s a cloud buyer’s market, so don’t rely on only one resource when you decide what you need.
Additional Resources on This Topic:
Can Hybrid Cloud Be Simply Understood?
Cloud Is the Ultimate Competitive Advantage for Small Business
Help for CIOs Who Struggle with Cloud Computing
A version of this post was first published on Entrepreneur.com
Photo Credit: patrickdwyermerrilllynch Flickr via Compfight cc
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