If your organization is considering a move to the cloud but needs more security and control than the public cloud can offer, a private cloud for your organization may be the answer. In today’s blog, we make the case for private cloud and introduce Tolar Cloud, our private cloud offering.
We recently posted about a few of the advantages of public, private and hybrid clouds. In this blog post, we’re going to deep dive into the case for private cloud. We believe that while public clouds are great for many businesses, a private cloud offers several advantages over public that make it a great fit for many of our clients.
What is a Private Cloud?
A private cloud is a subscription-based hardware and infrastructure solution that is only available to a single organization or a specific set of users. Unlike a public cloud which shares server space, infrastructure or networks with many different users and organizations, a private cloud’s infrastructure is dedicated for use only by users or members of a single organization.
There are several benefits to this. The most obvious is security, since other organizations and individuals aren’t sharing resources. This makes it an excellent solution for organizations that have high security and compliance standards, such as finance or health care. However, a private cloud can also be more expensive, and requires companies to have the ability to support the infrastructure, either in-house support or by working with a third party provider.
A few of the other advantages include:
- Governance – With public cloud, policies and principles for use are typically set by a cloud vendor, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services. With private cloud, the organization itself can determine the policies associated with using the cloud services.
- Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery – Private clouds can be part of an organization’s business continuity / disaster recovery infrastructure as long as there is a secondary location where the cloud resources can be hosted and a purpose, such as testing environments, for the necessary storage and bandwidth when not in use.
- Cost Savings – A recent survey by 451 Research found that for 41 percent of the 150 enterprise IT leaders surveyed, private cloud was cheaper than public cloud options. Public cloud typically charges based on usage, which can get expensive for some businesses. A private cloud can charge according to a number of models. A pricing model that works to the advantage of smaller businesses is user based pricing, based on the number of users that will access the cloud.
- Compliance – Private cloud services are an excellent option for small to midsize businesses that need to ensure regulatory compliance with HIPAA and other Federal regulations. For instance, HIPAA requires that organizations create, store and transmit electronic health information so that its confidentiality, integrity, and availability are ensured. Private clouds can accommodate the governance and security needed to accomplish this.
- Support – While public clouds are typically supported by the vendor delivering the cloud services, private clouds can be supported by an organization internally, or through a third party like Tolar Systems when the private cloud is externally hosted. Private clouds also allow organizations to continue support with trusted managed services or consultant teams.
- Flexibility – On-premises and hosted private clouds both allow organizations to be flexible with their hardware choices. They are not forced to use specific hardware or infrastructure to comply with public cloud vendor requirements.
Tolar Cloud: Our Private Cloud Package
Tolar has recently developed a private cloud option for clients that need the security, flexibility, cost savings and other advantages that private cloud can offer. Offered with predictable per-user pricing and hosted in our Abilene and Dallas data centers, our private cloud is available to clients in any location. We call it Tolar Cloud.
To learn more about it, contact Tolar Systems today to find out if Tolar Cloud is right for your organization.
