Public cloud offers many advantages. Yet the benefits can prove elusive in practice. Find out why on-demand private cloud may be right for you. Credit: metamorworks The public cloud offers plenty of tantalizing advantages to enterprise customers. The appeal of scalability, security, and performance — not to mention the elimination of massive capital expenditures — can be hard to resist. Countless enterprise businesses have flocked to the public cloud and never looked back. Yet, for some, the benefits that looked alluring on paper can prove elusive in practice. That’s because the advantages of the public cloud are not ubiquitously available and synonymous for all. The reality is that while the public cloud works incredibly well for plenty of enterprise customers, it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. However, that doesn’t mean that the public cloud’s signature pay-for-use pricing model can’t work in a private-cloud scenario. If you’re seeking the pricing and scalability of the public cloud, an on-demand private cloud may be the solution. The public cloud is remarkable, but it isn’t for everyone The public cloud has transformed business and can be an incredibly cost-effective option, especially when it comes to replacing a data center full of end-of-life equipment (or even eliminating the data center itself). The public cloud alleviates massive capital and operational expenditures associated with running a data center and the equipment it houses and spreads the costs into a pay-as-you-go and pay-for-what-you-use model. Organizations can scale up and down quickly and turn off workloads they aren’t using — all without the costs and headaches of on-premises infrastructure. At the same time, the benefits and suitability vary depending on each enterprise business’s needs, challenges, processes, and infrastructure. Possible unexpected costs Predicting public cloud costs can be difficult. For example, we know that, by and large, putting data into the cloud isn’t the problem. Pulling that data out is where costs can add up. Such costs can be tricky to estimate due because needs may fluctuate from month to month or season to season. Furthermore, well-intentioned organizations relish the idea of scalability and the capability to turn off unneeded workloads. The problem is, they often lack the processes and discipline to proactively manage these resources, and usage volumes and their associated costs can balloon quickly. Then there’s shadow IT. It’s challenging to monitor unsanctioned applications and workloads in the public cloud, and their associated usage costs (and risks) can pile up. Potentially unfamiliar architectures Public cloud providers have developed excellent solutions to secure data and ensure compliance. However, cloud architecture differs from traditional on-premises infrastructure, and the skillsets required to support these environments vary immensely. Migrating to the public cloud fundamentally changes the security boundaries, accessibility, behaviors, and skillsets required to support your infrastructure. Employees who are not highly trained in the cloud can inadvertently introduce security gaps and misconfiguration. Because information sits in the public cloud, these risks can pose much bigger threats than they might in a traditional on-premises infrastructure. Application behavior impacts Application behavior can also be an issue, particularly for workloads not optimized for the cloud or workloads that rely on decentralized edge processing. Sometimes, organizations shift their workloads to the public cloud but find that as data gets passed back and forth, application performance decreases as latency increases — as do egress fees for cloud bandwidth — in turn negatively impacting the user experience. Scalability and pricing of public cloud in a private cloud Fortunately, cloud-based pricing structures can exist in private data-center infrastructure. Some models allow organizations to enjoy demand-driven, consumption-based pricing without moving to the public cloud and without the need to adopt a CapEx-driven private infrastructure. Predictable, pay-as-you-go OpEx model In the on-demand private cloud model, organizations enjoy the flexibility and future scalability of a public cloud without the CapEx outlay of traditional IT infrastructure. This pay-for-use consumption model works well for organizations that understand their future sizing needs but don’t want to assume capital expenditures. The costs are predictable. Furthermore, organizations have increased visibility into resource usage — something that can prove more challenging in the public cloud. Familiar on-premises architectures As mentioned, the skillsets required to support public-cloud architectures differ from those needed to support on-premises architectures. By deploying a private-cloud architecture, the enterprise can leverage traditional security architectures, which may better align with an organization’s culture and the available skillsets. Predictable application performance Finally, in an on-demand private cloud, there’s no need to move applications, no need to refactor applications to be cloud-native, and no risk of unwanted behaviors turning up unexpectedly. You don’t have to worry about how your move to the public cloud will impact application performance. GDT delivers on-demand private-cloud solutions on HPE GreenLake Whether your organization is considering repatriation from public to private cloud or embracing the scalability and pay-as-you-go pricing in a private-cloud model, GDT has experts who can help you assess your needs and architect the right solution for your enterprise. Leveraging HPE GreenLake, GDT can deliver a purpose-built, on-demand private-cloud architecture that suits your needs today and in the future. GDT has some of the world’s leading, most experienced experts across cloud, data center, and hybrid multi-cloud. Whether you’re looking to move to a private, public, or hybrid multi-cloud, GDT has the experience and expertise to ensure a successful journey. Call us today, and we can discuss how to architect a best-in-breed solution to meet your specific enterprise needs. Related content brandpost Sponsored by GDT Get Business Done Faster with HPC and Exascale Supercomputing Businesses in every industry are finding new ways to use HPC and exascale supercomputing to transform operations and solve everyday challenges. With HPE Cray Frontier, the world’s most powerful supercomputer, the possibilities become truly infi By Nathan Chang and Malcolm Ferguson Jan 30, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Sponsored by GDT This Next-Generation Data Center Fabric Is a Total Game Changer East-West traffic has outgrown current-generation switching technologies. Discover the game-changing, next-generation data center fabric organizations need to overcome legacy limitations and resolve security and performance issues. By Kevin Downes and Scott Stevens Jan 30, 2023 4 mins Data Center brandpost Sponsored by GDT Are You Overthinking Your Cloud Model? You Need a Cloud Strategy Many organizations confuse their cloud adoption or migration plan with a cloud strategy. Discover how a true cloud strategy can help your business streamline decisions and maximize your cloud investments. By Chelis Camargo Jan 30, 2023 7 mins Cloud Computing brandpost Sponsored by GDT Why You Need to Consider Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service Discover how DRaaS can simplify operations and minimize risk in a cost-effective, customizable, and scalable way. By Lawrence Redford Dec 20, 2022 4 mins Disaster Recovery PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe