Overview of public cloud deployment model including characteristics cost benefits provider comparisons and how services are provisioned and accessed over the internet
Deployment models indicate where the infrastructure resides, who owns and manages it, and how cloud resources and services are made available to users. The four cloud deployment models include Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Community Cloud, and Hybrid Cloud.
In a public cloud model, users get access to servers, storage, network, security, and applications as services delivered by cloud service providers over the internet. Using web consoles and APIs, users can provision the resources and services they need. The cloud provider owns, manages, provisions, and maintains the infrastructure, renting it out to customers either for a subscription charge or usage-based fee.
Users don’t own the servers their applications run on or the storage their data consumes. They also do not manage the operations of the servers or determine how the platforms are maintained. Similar to utilities such as water, electricity, or gas, users make an agreement with the service provider, use the resources, and pay for what they use within a certain period.
Public clouds offer significant cost savings in terms of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as the provider bears all the capital, operational, and maintenance expenses for the infrastructure and the facilities they are hosted in. Scalability is as easy as requesting more capacity. However, users do not have control over the computing environment and are subject to the performance and security of the cloud provider’s infrastructure.
There are several public cloud providers in the market today, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud Platform, and Alibaba Cloud. While all providers include a common set of core services, such as servers, storage, network, security, and databases, they also offer a wide spectrum of niche services with varied payment options.
A public cloud is a virtualized multi-tenant architecture enabling tenants or users to share computing resources residing outside their firewalls. The cloud provider’s pool of resources, including infrastructure, platforms, and software, are not dedicated for use by a single tenant or organization. Resources are distributed on an as-needed basis offered through a variety of subscription and pay-as-you-go models.
Vast on-demand resources are available, allowing applications to respond seamlessly to fluctuations in demand. The public cloud offers significant economies of scale due to the large number of users sharing centralized cloud resources. The sheer number of server and network resources available means that a public cloud is highly available—if one physical component fails, the service still runs unaffected on the remaining available components.
Key concerns with public clouds include security and data sovereignty compliance. Security issues such as data breaches, data loss, account hijacking, insufficient due diligence, and system and application vulnerability are common fears. With data stored in different locations and accessed across national borders, compliance with data sovereignty regulations governing the storage, transfer, and security of data is critical. A service provider’s ability to keep up with and interpret these regulations is a concern shared by many businesses.
Organizations are increasingly opting to access cloud-based applications and platforms to focus on building and testing applications, reducing time-to-market for their products and services. Businesses with fluctuating capacity and resourcing needs are opting for the public cloud. Organizations use public cloud computing resources to build secondary infrastructures for disaster recovery, data protection, and business continuity. More organizations are using cloud storage and data management services for greater accessibility, easy distribution, and data backup. IT departments are outsourcing the management of less critical and standardized business platforms and applications to public cloud providers.
Public cloud computing is a popular choice for organizations looking to reduce costs, increase flexibility, and improve scalability. By leveraging the resources and services of a public cloud provider, businesses can focus on their core competencies and leave the management of infrastructure to the experts. Public cloud providers offer a wide range of services, from basic compute and storage to advanced analytics and machine learning, enabling organizations to build and deploy applications quickly and efficiently.