Private Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Multi Cloud

Using cloud services grants companies a flexibility that is difficult to achieve with purely on-premises solutions. The operating models allow lot of freedom to choose. Some businesses value the out-of-the-box options of the large public cloud providers, while others prefer not to use public cloud for compliance or privacy reasons. As a result, these businesses often rely on a private cloud solution. Hybrid cloud environments are the tool of choice for companies that wish to continue using part of their existing IT infrastructure, as they allow them to move existing workloads freely between the cloud and on-premises environments.

Private cloud

The private cloud is usually set up in businesses which are prevented from using a public cloud for legal or formal reasons. Through a combination of standardization, automation and orchestration, a private cloud follows the same principles of its public counterpart. A variety of software options are available for managing and providing a private cloud, which can be expanded according to requirements and sophistication.

Hybrid cloud

A hybrid cloud is a combination of a local data center environment with a cloud solution. As the hypervisors used in such a solution are identical, the virtual machines can be shifted between the on-premises environment and the cloud without changes. The cloud solution generally uses the same management systems as the on-premises environment. Making this kind of hybrid cloud solution work requires certain conditions to be met on the network side. It is essential, for example, to establish a VPN connection between the local data center and the cloud. Alongside the use of VPN connections, providers offer further options for moving the virtual machines.

Multi-cloud

A multi-cloud is essentially identical to a hybrid system. The only difference is that it uses more than one cloud. It is possible, for example, to combine special software as a service solutions from the public cloud with the local data center and a further cloud solution. This scenario requires various network connections and VPN tunnels.