Cloud types

What are the general cloud types?

Public cloud

Public clouds provide access to computing resources for the general public over the Internet. The public cloud provider allows customers to self-provision resources typically via a web service interface. Public clouds offer access to pools of scalable resources on a temporary rent as you go basis without the need for capital investment in data center infrastructure.

Private cloud

Private clouds give users immediate access to computing resources hosted within an organization’s infrastructure. Users self-provision and scale collections of resources drawn from the private cloud, just as with a public cloud. However, because it is deployed within the organization’s existing data center, and behind the organization’s firewall, a private cloud is subject to the organization’s physical, electronic, and procedural security measures and thus offers a higher degree of security over sensitive code and data. In addition, private clouds consolidate and optimize the performance of physical hardware through virtualization. Since you use your current data center infrastructure you have a better idea on how the resources are being utilized. The cloud systems I will discuss are of this type.

Hybrid cloud

A hybrid cloud combines computing resources and draws from one or more public clouds and one or more private clouds at the behest of its users.