As private cloud solutions continue to gain in popularity, the question “on-premise vs hosted private cloud” arises. Companies are looking into the private cloud as an infrastructure solution that offers a balance between the functionalities and scalability of cloud services and the security, control and robustness of traditional IT infrastructures.
Both deployment models have points in common, as well as some differences organizations must know in order to make a well-informed decision. So, let’s see which are the main features and advantages of each of them.
On-premise private cloud
On-premise private cloud environments are owned, managed and maintained by the company, and hosted within its facilities. Thus allowing companies to keep full control over their data centers while leveraging some of the cloud’s benefits.
However, creating an on-premise private cloud infrastructure is costly, as companies continue to be responsible for its full management, maintenance and upgrading. Besides, this approach requires an expert team in networking, cloud platforms like OpenStack or VMware, storage software, system administration and monitoring, etc.
On-premise private cloud features
On-premise private cloud environments offer diverse features and advantages:
- Full control over the company’s data center and over infrastructure, servers, network and storage configurations.
- Full customization to meet specific security, compliance and performance requirements.
- Security and redundancy measures must be implemented internally.
- Highly skilled computing, networking and storage team required.
- Significant investment in dedicated hardware, networking equipment, software and staffing required — in case the company does not already have an in-house expert team.
- Limited scalability, as it is necessary to make additional investments in infrastructure to increase capacity.
Hosted private cloud
Hosted private cloud environments are managed, maintained and hosted by a service provider. Thus making it easier for companies to leverage the advantages of the cloud.
It accelerates provisioning and deployment procedures, while allowing businesses to forget about the management and maintenance of a physical infrastructure. Moreover, companies can scale their infrastructure more easily and efficiently, and their IT team can focus on tasks that add more value to their core business.
Hosted Private Cloud features
Hosted private cloud environments are becoming increasingly popular among organizations because they provide them with much more value for money. When hosted in specialized data centers, private cloud environments offer numerous functionalities and advantages:
- Great control over the environment, and high level of security, privacy and redundancy.
- Hosted private cloud infrastructures can also be customized to meet certain specific security, compliance and performance requirements.
- Outsourced management, maintenance and upgrading.
- Predictable performance.
- Control over costs with optimized OPEX and no CAPEX.
- Higher scalability and efficiency.
- Outsourced specialized cloud team.
- Possibility to distribute the infrastructure in multiple data centers. At Stackscale in particular, we offer synchronous replication and real high availability between data centers in Madrid.
- Affordable Disaster Recovery and business continuity.
Furthermore, this private cloud deployment is based on a shared-responsibility model. While the private cloud provider is in charge of ensuring that the infrastructure, storage and networking are completely secure, customers must take responsibility for aspects such as access management, encryption or network traffic protection.
On-premise vs hosted private cloud costs
When assessing these two private cloud deployment models, it is important to take into account both CAPEX and OPEX to calculate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the on-premise environment. This enables organizations to properly assess both efficiency and return on investment (ROI).
On this matter, although private cloud environments have traditionally been hosted on-premises, the hosted private cloud approach has taken the lead over the last few years. This is due to the fact that hosted private cloud environments offer increased flexibility and cost-efficiency — without giving up control. With Stackscale’s private cloud, we help our customers optimize costs and maximize performance with custom quotes adapted to the specific needs of each project.
To sum up, the “on-premise vs hosted private cloud” question has no one-size-fits-all answer. However, there is no doubt this type of cloud keeps gaining in popularity. Actually, as cloud computing evolves and new trends emerge, repatriation from the public cloud is also gaining relevance among CIOs and CTOs to achieve higher performance, control and cost-efficiency.
The private cloud services market is expected to surpass 246 billion euros (276 billion dollars) by 2027, according to the Global Private Cloud Service Market 2023-2027 report by Research and Markets.
Moreover, as we explain in our article about private cloud features and advantages, the private cloud offers many benefits to companies. Therefore, it is important to analyze each project specifications, starting point and goals in order to opt for the most suitable solution. On this matter, there are many aspects to take into consideration, such as budget, scalability needs or in-house IT expertise.
Is your company considering to deploy a private cloud infrastructure?
Do not hesitate to contact us. Our technical team completely aligns with our customers’ teams to become an extension of their IT department.
