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The thing Private Clouds can do that Public Clouds can’t

Posted by Edward in Cloud Computing on Oct 17th, 2009 | View Comments

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I read the post below with interest, hoping that it would shed further light on the relative merits of private vs public clouds.

The Thing Private Clouds Can Do that Public Clouds Can’t | Cloud Computing Journal

Unfortunately, the main argument outlined was actually one of business process engineering, and the writer claimed that adopting the Private Cloud would highlight your inefficiencies and help you streamline your processes while the Public Cloud could not do this.

Sadly, there are numerous examples of companies adopting virtualisation technology (a precursor to the Private Cloud) that have still fallen foul of the same problem by not fixing their operational processes, leading to parts of their IT inventory being underutilised or not working as they should. This shows that the Private Cloud has no bearing on the improvement of operational efficiencies, and this looks like another case of leveraging the term “Cloud” in just because we can.

Having been a management consultant in the field of business process engineering, a company has to decide first if it wants to streamline/improve its processes: this is completely independent of the technology involved. I believe that the 3 Ps (People, Processes, Products – ie technology), considered in order, make a better company and not the other way around.

Later the author talks briefly about the impact of DDoS attacks on Public Clouds and that these attacks are hard to spot and difficult to resolve due to the large scale of the Public Cloud. I touched on this at the end of my recent post on hosting types, and agree that these types of attacks are harder to spot and take longer to fix in Public Clouds than Private Clouds simply due to the relative scale of the Public Cloud to the Private Cloud, but then if you added a thimble of water to a lake you’d probably not notice the difference, but if you added it to a glass you’d be able to spot the change more easily.

For a good insight into thoughts on Private Cloud, read Private Clouds: A Valuable Concept or Buzzword Bingo? and Why Cloud is at the Top of the CIO’s Priorities.