What Is Private Cloud Hosting?

What is the Difference Between Private and Public Cloud?

What are Public Clouds?

Public clouds are environments where resources and services are made available to multiple clients over the Internet. Unlike private clouds, public clouds are owned and operated by third-party cloud service providers, such as Atlantic.Net, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. These providers manage and maintain the infrastructure, allowing customers to access computing resources on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Public clouds offer high scalability and flexibility, with resources being dynamically allocated as needed. However, because resources are shared among many users, there can be concerns about data privacy and compliance, making them less suitable for sensitive data or mission-critical applications.

What are Private Clouds?

Private clouds are typically utilized by companies with sensitive data, management, or workload demands beyond those practical for a shared environment. In the early days of private cloud, some organizations chose to host a private cloud on-premises. The benefits of private cloud are maximized when the organization leverages the data center resources of a reliable cloud provider, like Atlantic.Net. This removes the responsibility of providing and maintaining critical redundant systems like cooling, power, networking, storage, and infrastructure that normally lie far outside the core competency of most companies.

Private Hosting On-Premises

Private hosting is a hosting arrangement such that an organization’s infrastructure, databases, and servers all exist in an exclusive location inaccessible to anyone outside the company or the private hosting provider. This type of hosting is often used by large companies in need of enterprise-grade functionality.

In the early days of the Internet, private hosting was done completely on-site for big companies. They would invest in servers housed in the organizations’ headquarters or a private data center.

Private Hosting with an Independent Cloud Provider

Private hosting with an independent cloud provider involves utilizing the provider's infrastructure to host a company's dedicated cloud environment. This setup allows organizations to benefit from the provider's expertise in managing data centers, networking, and security while maintaining control over their data and applications.

Independent providers often offer flexible options for customization and can tailor the infrastructure to meet specific business requirements. This model is particularly beneficial for organizations that need the reliability and scalability of a cloud environment without the complexities of managing physical hardware.

Private Hosting on Rented Infrastructure

Private hosting on rented infrastructure involves leasing servers and other hardware from a third-party data center, rather than purchasing and maintaining them outright. This model offers the benefits of private cloud hosting, such as dedicated resources and enhanced security, without the capital expenditure associated with buying and housing hardware. The hosting provider typically manages the physical infrastructure, while the client retains control over the software and applications running on it.

This approach differs from traditional private hosting with a cloud provider in that the rented infrastructure often includes a broader range of services, such as managed IT support, network management, and storage solutions. Companies can customize their environment to fit their specific needs, with the flexibility to expand or contract resources as required. Additionally, this model provides a middle ground between fully on-premises solutions and fully outsourced cloud services.

Virtual Private Hosting (VPS Hosting)

In the 2000s, improvements in software and hardware capabilities led to the development of the virtual private server (VPS). VPS technology allows software called a “hypervisor” to use the physical hardware of a server, such as memory, CPU and networking capabilities. Each virtual server acts like a normal operating system with its own applications, email software, Internet browsing capabilities, etc. Each user has his or her own unique user ID, password, and authentication code to sign on with.

For an example of the benefits of VPS Hosting, consider a company with offices in different parts of the world. Say a chemical news bureau is headquartered in London but also has other offices in world energy hub cities such as Houston and Shanghai. Rather than redundantly set up the Texas and China offices with all of the same hardware and servers in London, a VPS hosting solution is established. A virtual server powered in the UK allows users in Houston and Shanghai to log on through a virtual server and see the exact same desktop and shared file servers as their colleagues in London.

Atlantic.Net’s Private Cloud

The dedicated infrastructure of Atlantic.Net’s Private Cloud solutions allow the highest degree of visibility and control of any cloud environment, ultimately providing the peace of mind your company expects and deserves. Having dedicated resources also guarantees they will be available when they are needed, making planning easier than in a public cloud model in which a “noisy neighbour” could take up resources, potentially impacting other users in the cloud.

Because new resources can be spun up and spun down as needed, Atlantic.Net’s Private Cloud retains much of the scalability and elasticity of a public cloud. It is also similarly resilient because the virtualized server workload can be redistributed to different pieces of hardware in the event of a failure.

Private Cloud Setups Available From Atlantic.Net

There are several setups available for Atlantic.Net’s Private Cloud solutions, each defined by the hypervisor controlling them:

Microsoft Hyper-V is a popular hypervisor (virtual machine manager) that is strategically suited for those primarily using Windows Servers. Those who do so may already be comfortable with its interface and features, like Windows Active Directory, which Hyper-V uses for access control in certain circumstances. It also comes loaded with many features that enable easy maintenance, security, backups, and live migration..

Hyper-V can also be deployed as a “bare metal” hypervisor, meaning it does not run on an underlying operating system. Accessing hardware resources directly provides better performance, scalability, and stability.

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is an open source hypervisor for the Linux operating system, as opposed to a bare metal hypervisor. While it is bundled with Linux, KVM supports running a wide variety of operating systems as “guests,” including Windows. One of the most-widely used cloud hypervisors in the world, KVM is touted as providing a low-cost alternative without sacrificing performance, scalability, or security.

VMware vSphere is a popular enterprise platform for deploying and managing private cloud. It is designed to run VMware's ESXi bare metal hypervisor. While vSphere is designed to work with other VMware cloud and virtualization products, it also supports Hyper-V and KVM based virtual machines. vSphere ESXi trades some of the flexibility and features of Hyper-V for a smaller footprint and more simplicity, which contribute to its strong security and ease of use.