Differences Between Private and Public Cloud Scalability
As businesses grow, they want to know that their growth does not surpass their capacity. Businesses also want to have the ability to downsize to avoid over paying for services. Regardless of the motivation, it is important to figure out what cloud will offer the scalability your company desires.
Scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of work in a capable manner or its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth. Cloud scalability can involve adding or removing users, software, or increasing or decreasing storage. The thing to remember is that not all clouds work the same! Depending on whether your cloud is public or private, your options to scale your business will differ. Even being under different cloud providers will have different options for scalability.
Scalability in the Public Cloud:
Public clouds are the most popular cloud services that people often use. Public clouds offer many free services such as email, spreadsheets, and documents that make daily operations quick and easy.
The software offered over public clouds is often limited to basic features. This is done in order to keep the cost of development low and ensure that an extremely wide audience can utilize the software. Since this is the case, public clouds are often difficult to scale because any updates to the software have to show a large demand from the current consumers. Scalability depends on the demand in a public cloud.
Public clouds also tend to support only one user and files have to be shared in order to collaborate. This can raise privacy concerns because once people are given access to a file, they have the ability to share it anywhere and to anybody. While it is helpful to have multiple users interact with data, it shows that data on a public cloud can be accessed by anybody.
Public clouds also work on a freemium model when it comes to storage. A limited amount of data storage is given to free users. Users then purchase more storage to hold more of their data. Scalability depends on how much companies would like to pay. This model is similar to the private cloud model.
Scalability in the Private Cloud:
Scalability in the private cloud works differently because it is fundamentally different than the public cloud. The private cloud creates a private environment for a user or multiple users where only they have access to data and software. When a company sets up a private cloud, their provider customizes the features to fit what that business needs.
Software is easily scalable on the cloud. If a company needs QuickBooks, that is added to their cloud. Most software and applications can be added to the cloud easily by contacting the cloud-hosting provider. The software is also kept up to date with all the latest features so you do not have to wait for the market to demand new features.
Users can also be easily added and removed. Since the private cloud is in its own environment, you are not required to share the data to people who can just as easily share the data with others. Instead, you have full control over who can access the data and what they can do inside of your cloud.
Data storage is easily added to the cloud as well. Much like the public cloud, you pay to expand your storage.
There are some similarities in scalability with the public and private clouds however there are many differences. Public clouds offer services at low costs and in turn offer a product that can be utilized by a wide audience. Private clouds are often paid services that offer much more customization and scalability for a business.
Private clouds are built to support large growth for any business and offer scalability that businesses can depend on. Nobody wants to limit the company’s growth so the option with the best scalability can be easily utilized to fit their business at any level.
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