Organizations using cloud computing can still run some applications on-premises. They can use service providers to provide cloud applications, SaaS, and cloud platforms. Private clouds bring the technology of the cloud into an organization’s own on-premises world. Traditionally it was taking public cloud services and providing them on-premises. A thing which is important is that Private doesn’t mean to bring some cloud technologies into your own on-premises world. It’s just not fair to begin referring to your on-premises data center with no changes as a private cloud. The private cloud can be a confusing market largely because vendors use the term in different ways.
Most conversations today about the private cloud are also about hybrid cloud, so what is a hybrid cloud?
If you got an application running in the public cloud with data on a private cloud, that can be a hybrid cloud. Which is not right, that is a hybrid application. The public cloud platforms can do hybrid applications. To be a hybrid cloud, you need to have public cloud services linked with private clouds in some way, and you can link various services.
Basically Public and private clouds address different problems, and so they are complementary. Public clouds help you scale, get cheaper resources, and more. Private clouds make your on-premises world better. Public cloud plus private cloud yields hybrid cloud, a common goal today.
The private cloud market has been slow to take off. This is due in part to complexity. A number of vendors tried to turn their on-premises virtualization environments into private clouds, something that didn’t work out all that well, so we’re now seeing other approaches.
Finally, private clouds can provide real value. For example, fast access to computing resources, and IaaS VMs on demand in your own data center. Private clouds also give you modern application services, you can now install the new version of Windows Server or Linux and get the latest application platform technologies. If you want things like serverless computing, you need to use a cloud platform. Those services are only available as part of cloud technologies, and so private clouds have become essential for getting modern application development services in your own environment. Especially if you are still building on-premises applications, you can’t ignore private clouds.
